81 pages • 2 hours read
Jordan SonnenblickNotes From The Midnight Driver
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Character Analysis
Alex Peter Gregory
The protagonist and narrator of Notes from the Midnight Driver, Alex is an awkward teenage boy struggling through the aftermath of his parents’ divorce. Alex is primarily characterized as sarcastic, caring, and immature. He frequently struggles with making the right decisions or navigating conflict appropriately; these difficulties are the catalyst for the novel’s plot.
Over the course of the novel, Jordan Sonnenblick charts Alex’s changing personality as Alex learns to be more reflective and sensitive to the needs of others. Alex begins using sarcasm less frequently to avoid conflict, allowing him to have deep exchanges with the people he is closest with. Alex’s increased emotional growth also allows him to become a stronger musician, allowing him to find a healthier outlet for his difficult feelings about his parents’ divorce. He also grows to understand his feelings for Laurie, and eventually acts on his feelings rather than sitting on the sidelines.
Sonnenblick characterizes Alex as a relatively typical teenage boy who has trouble sorting through his emotions to understand how he feels about situations. By centering Alex as the first-person narrator of the text, Sonnenblick creates opportunities for Alex to reflect on the mistakes he makes so that readers can more clearly trace Alex’s development over the course of the plot.
Solomon “Sol” Lewis
An elderly man with severe emphysema, Mr. Solomon Lewis becomes a central character in Notes from the Midnight Driver when Alex must work with him for 100 hours of community service. Through Alex’s eyes, readers are introduced to this cantankerous character who peppers his speech with traditional Yiddish sayings and insults. As time goes on, Sol is revealed to be a gifted musician with a complicated past of his own.
The novel relies heavily on Sol as a catalyst for Alex’s growth: Through Alex’s relationship with Sol, Alex becomes a stronger musician and experiences big shifts in his thinking about his relationships with Laurie and his parents. Although Sol is not particularly kind to Alex in the beginning of their relationship, he is quickly revealed to be a key mentor in Alex’s life. Sol’s relationship with his daughter, Judy Trent, also serves as somewhat of a mirror for Alex’s relationship with his own parents. Before Sol dies, he’s able to ignite a positive fire in Alex, thus symbolizing a new beginning despite his own ending.
Laurie
Alex’s best friend, Laurie, is a critical character and romantic interest in the novel. Described as the spitting image of “Tinker Bell […] wear[ing] nothing but baggy black clothes” (27), Laurie is an intimidatingly attractive teenage girl who is an expert in karate. Although Alex and Laurie have been friends for years, they have an important connection in their teenage years since both of their parents are divorced. Alex frequently turns to Laurie for advice, viewing her as one of the most sensible people he knows.
Over the course of Notes from the Midnight Driver, Laurie wrestles with feeling abandoned because her mother has gotten pregnant with a new boyfriend. Like Alex, Laurie struggles to move through her emotions in a healthy way. Laurie is also the primary romantic interest of the novel; Alex struggles to figure out how to understand this change in their relationship. Alex’s growth affects Laurie, however, and she and Alex begin the first furtive steps toward a romantic relationship as they both grow in their understanding of their parents, and each other.
Ms. Gregory, Alex’s Mother
Although Notes from the Midnight Driver does not center Alex’s mother in the plot, she remains an important character because of her relationship with Alex. In the beginning of the novel, Alex’s mother is primarily important because of her stern reaction to Alex’s accident; later, she becomes a more sympathetic character as readers see her struggle to figure out her relationship with her former spouse. Alex’s mother is also characterized as hard-working; she spends long hours at the nursing home and specifically arranges for Alex to work with Sol so that Alex can learn a valuable lesson.
Mr. Gregory, Alex’s Father
Alex’s father is the more absent of his two parents. A manager at a local bank, Alex’s father has been living separately from the family since the divorce. As Alex begins to shift his perspective, he realizes that his father isn’t the “bad guy” (91) that Alex had assumed he was. Alex’s father is one of the few characters who directly challenges Alex and is honest with him.
Judge Judy Trent
A secondary character, Judge Judy Trent appears to only serve as a backdrop for Alex’s reflections on his time with Sol. Yet towards the turn of the novel, it is revealed that the judge is in fact Sol’s estranged daughter, and their reconciliation serves as a critical part of the text’s resolution. The judge is at first an aloof character who only wants Alex to learn a lesson; this characterization then shifts at the end of Notes from the Midnight Driver when she has an emotional reaction upon seeing her father, Sol, at a music event put on at the nursing home. In the same way that Alex learns to understand and accept his parents, Judge Trent eventually understands—and reconciles with—her father.
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