This Michael Devlin, who recalls learning all he knows about Jews when he was the shabbos goy for the "old rabbi on 14th Street," is clearly the same Michael whose boyhood self Hamill created later in Snow in August (1997; see separate entry). Although the rowdy, lusty Michael of Loving Women seems different from the dreamy lad whose purity wins the day, they have the same intellectual curiosity and emotional bravery. Their backgrounds are the same, although this Michael's illiterate, somewhat narrow-minded father is a far cry from Tommy Devlin, in more ways than being alive, his mother is not Irish Kate, but a "ladderback" from the Bronx, and he has siblings.