The Rainmaker

Booker is Rudy’s best friend in law school. He is African American, married with children, and is set to work at a prestigious firm that deals specifically with civil rights litigation. Booker is a static character who repeatedly helps Rudy get out of trouble. Booker helps Rudy avoid prosecution when he knocks over a bust that breaks a glass partition at the offices of Brodnax and Speer. Booker takes Rudy in for a while after Rudy’s eviction. Booker also helps keep Rudy levelheaded and focused on studying and passing the bar exam. Most importantly, Booker introduces Rudy to the man who will become tremendously important in Rudy’s fight against Great Benefit: Tyrone Kipler. 

Deck is a short, balding, unattractive middle-aged man. He went through law school but failed to pass the bar multiple times. He is the perfect sidekick and gopher. Although he is the antithesis of Rudy, he is intelligent and resourceful enough to be of great help to anyone for whom he works.

Deck is loyal when he knows that the person he works for will take care of him and help him out. His purpose in the novel is to contrast Rudy’s ideals and morals with the dirty reality of being a trial lawyer. He is pragmatic when it comes to getting paid and either doesn’t care or has made peace with having to get his hands dirty by “chasing ambulances” to get clients. He helps Rudy in that he knows a lot about insurance companies and can handle much of the paperwork involved in combating Great Benefit. Furthermore, Deck has contacts with shadier characters who offer their own help to Rudy, including Butch, the tough ex-cop who provides protection for Rudy and Kelly when the Riker clan becomes violent.  

Kelly is a beautiful 19-year-old woman whom Rudy meets in the hospital because her husband, Cliff Riker, beats her when he is drunk and frustrated. Kelly is the archetypal damsel-in-distress. Kelly provides the romantic and erotic element to the story. She needs Rudy to rescue her from herself, because she is afraid to divorce Cliff on her own (for good reasons), and but desperately needs him to rescue her from her abusive husband before he kills her in one of his fits of rage. 

Miss Birdie, a wealthy elderly widow, highlights the greed inherent in so many people. She uses the rumor of her inherited wealth to manipulate those around her into giving her the attention she so strongly desires. It is this manipulation that brings her into contact with Rudy. Her character also serves to highlight the fact that Rudy is able to rise above the greedy designs of others, like Birdie’s own sons. Rudy is interested in Miss Birdie, at first, because of her supposed wealth, but he soon comes to sympathize with her loneliness, recognizing that what Birdie really needs is a friend and someone who cares about her, and not just because they hope to inherit her wealth after she’s dead.

The Blacks are Dot, Buddy, Donny Ray, and Ron. Dot is the mother of Donny Ray and Ron. Ron appears to be the most successful of the Blacks and lives in Houston. Though he appears to be estranged from the rest of his family, he is more than willing to be a bone marrow donor for Donny Ray. Buddy is an alcoholic who doesn’t have a job. He spends most of his day sitting in his car in the driveway, drinking. Donny Ray developed leukemia and dies. He is the catalyst behind the suit against Great Benefit.

The Black family represents the economically underprivileged. They are poor, uneducated, blue collar workers. They and people like them are the prime targets for large corporations and immoral insurance companies, which prey on people like the Blacks. Rudy is there to protect them, to save them from those who would take advantage of them. He is their voice in the convoluted judiciary and financial world.

Tyrone is a successful lawyer and a Harvard graduate. He is African American and is a partner in the firm where Booker Kane works. His most important role in the novel comes when he replaces Judge Hale and takes on Rudy’s case, Black vs. Great Benefit. Tyrone is the antithesis of Judge Hale, who himself represents the entrenched white, Ivy-League-graduate, good-old’-boy hierarchy that has long been in place within the judicial system. Thus, Kipler, therefore, represents a changing of the old guard. And because of this, he becomes Rudy’s greatest supporter in defeating Great Benefit and exposing it as an immoral, illegal company.