writing about reactions to Bob the other day inevitably made me think about people’s reactions to his dad. one of the things that makes him so fun to write (and it IS fun, when it’s not soul-crushing instead) is that it’s easy to take him at face value, and most people do. With Bob, I think there’s this implication that there is more there than what you see - he’s the loner, and that’s what we’ve been trained to expect from loners in stories. Steven, on the other hand, is just this larger-than-life meathead who seems to do well at parties and yells real loud sometimes. We aren’t expected to read much into a character like that. A reader - and a smart one, too - predicted that Steven was the kind of guy who had a woman “at every port” and was disgusted by his son’s lack of larger-than-life-meatheadiness. That was fascinating to me. I’m not sure if all readers will pick up on Bob’s evolution as a character as MO progresses, but I don’t think they’ll be able to ignore Steven being a very different character than what they likely anticipated.