13 Characters

I have been writing and posting Suzie’s House episodes on a weekly basis for seven years now. Quite a few characters have been introduced in that time. Here are 13 of them.

1. Suzie Hammaker, aka Mrs. H. – the owner of a great Victorian house in the Willy Street neighborhood of Madison, Wisconsin. She is forced by economics to turn the place into a boarding house. She tends to be a little too nice.

2. Miranda Bailey – Suzie’s best friend and first boarder. She is occasionally a real nut job but means well.

3. Andrew Banks aka Drew – one of the borders. He is in love with Suzie. He was an FBI agent until the bureau sent him to Albuquerque. While working undercover he became addicted to a designer drug and lost everything.

4. Marvin Sutter aka Vin – one of the borders. He is madly in love with Miranda and a long standing friend to Drew. Went through the FBI training, but proved too much of a maverick to fit in at the bureau.

5. Ben Hammaker – Suzie’s son. At the beginning of the series he was in sixth grade. Now he’s in the summer break between middle school and high school. He and his girl friend are both trying to write novels over the break.

6. Lisa Johansen – Ben’s girlfriend. They became friends at the same time as Ben and Gene. For a while it was up in the air who she would go with.

7. Gene Thomas – Became Ben’s friend in middle school. Ran away from home when his father beat him too many times and ended up living in Suzie’s house. Suzie is trying to adopt him, but he has been resisting. Plays lead guitar in a rock band called Malaprop.

8. Tracy Martin – Lisa’s cousin and Gene’s girlfriend. She instigated the formation of Malaprop for which she plays bass guitar. It was named after her way of handling language.

9. Kate Hughes – drummer in Malaprop. Got into the band through an audition. She’s a terrible gossip.

10. Emma Zempel – lead singer in Malaprop and Kate’s friend. She has a number of nervous conditions and is horrendously shy, but changes completely when wearing a mask. She does band practice with a paper bag over her head. Got into the band when she surprised everyone by singing during a practice session.

11. Bruce Benson – keyboard player in Malaprop. He’s a bit of a thug with connections in the local music scene. He makes masks for Emma.

12. Justin Whilks – drummer in Malaprop. Got in through the same audition as Kate. He likes Kate, and Emma likes him.

13. Diane Applegate – neighbor and friend to Suzie. Heroine of Moving In.