Aloysius Pendergast - The Pendergast Family

The Pendergast Family

Officially, the Pendergast's family wealth came from pharmaceuticals, and the family became sufficiently old and established in New Orleans to conduct themselves as aristocracy. However, there are hints that the fortune actually came from patent medicine ("snake oil"), and that some of the family's customers suffered permanent injury or even death from its effects.

Pendergast also confides, to his shame, that a streak of insanity has afflicted his family for generations, such that many of them have been convicted of horrible crimes, and ended their lives in asylums.

• Diogenes Dagrepont Bernoulli Pendergast – Pendergast's younger brother (born circa 1962). As intelligent as Aloysius, if not more so, but criminally insane. Although he was always a unique child, Diogenes was pushed over the edge during a traumatic event during their childhoods, resulting in brain damage and heterochromia iridis. Diogenes is first mentioned in Brimstone, after which he commits a series of grisly murders, which he frames Aloysius for, then a daring theft from the New York Museum of Natural History, to be completed with a horrific mass murder under circumstances similar to the "Event" during his childhood. Aloysius breaks out of prison with the help of his allies, only clearing his name later, and thwarts Diogenes' last crime. The three novels Brimstone, Dance of Death, and The Book of the Dead make up an internal series about the unique fraternal relationship between Aloysius and Diogenes, culminating in the latter's death. These are known as the "Diogenes Trilogy". Sherlock Holmes fans will undoubtedly recognize Preston's and Child's homage to Doyle's famous works, in both their choice of first name for Aloysius Pendergast's brother, and in the circumstances of Diogenes's demise.

• Cornelia Delamere Pendergast – Pendergast's great-aunt, who poisoned her husband, brother and children. Cornelia held residence at the Mount Mercy Hospital for the Criminally Insane until her death. Despite her complete insanity, Pendergast still considered her wise, and sought her counsel when he had a dilemma. Sometime during the events of Fever Dream, Cornelia dies, leaving Pendergast a letter of unknown content.

• Antoine Leng Pendergast (a.k.a. Enoch Leng) – Pendergast's great-grand uncle. Traveled north to New York after being expelled from the Pendergast family. Taxonomist and chemist as well as a member of the New York Lyceum in the late 19th century. Exposed as a serial killer in The Cabinet of Curiosities who killed many people in the pursuit of a substance that would prolong his life. He succeeded and survived well into the late 20th century, until he was murdered in his home on Riverside Drive. Pendergast now lives in Leng's old mansion on Riverside Drive, with Proctor as butler/chauffeur. He has refurnished the mansion and made it liveable and quite elegant.

• Hezekiah Pendergast – (Pendergast's great-great grandfather) Antoine's father. Was a traveling salesman who contributed greatly to the family fortune by selling a quack medicine known as Hezekiah's Compound Elixir and Glandular Restorative. The tonic was eventually exposed as a lethal blend of cocaine, acetanilid, and alkaloid botanicals. It was the cause of uncounted addictions and deaths, including that of Hezekiah's wife and Antoine's mother, Constance Leng Pendergast.

• Henri Pendregast de Mousqueton – a "seventeenth-century mountebank who pulled teeth, performed magic and comedy, and practiced quack medicine."

• Eduard Pendregast – a "well-known Harley Street doctor in eighteenth-century London."

• Comstock Pendergast – Pendergast's great-grand uncle. Famed mesmerist, magician, and mentor to Harry Houdini. Eventually murdered his business partner and his family. He then committed suicide by cutting his throat twice.

• Linnaeus Pendergast – Pendergast's father, who was killed in the fire.

• Isabella Pendergast – Pendergast's mother, also killed in the fire.

• Boethius Pendergast – Pendergast's great-grandfather. Lived at the Penumbra, was good friends with famed naturalist painter, John James Audubon.

• Helen Pendergast – Pendergast's thought-to-be deceased wife (maiden name Helen Esterhazy). Helen was a doctor with Doctors With Wings, a group similar to Doctors Without Borders that travels to third-world countries and disaster areas to help people who would have otherwise had little chance of survival. She is a skilled big game hunter, and it was one of the pastimes that brought her and Pendergast together. For many years, she was thought to have been killed on an African safari, but she reappears in the book Cold Vengeance. She is a descendant of the Hungarian Esterházy aristocratic family.

• Judson Esterhazy – Pendergast's brother-in-law. Like his sister Helen, he was a doctor with Doctors With Wings and is a skilled hunter. He plays an important role in the "Helen Trilogy".

• Percy Harrison Fawcett – Pendergast's great-great uncle on his mother’s side. He was an explorer and disappeared in the jungles along the Upper Xingu River (hence Pendergast's middle name) in 1925 while looking for the mysterious Lost City of Z.

• Alban Pendergast - A twin and one of Pendergast's children which Helen had without his knowledge.

• Tristram Pendergast - The second twin and son of Pendergast.