Vince comes from a family of gangsters who still have their own idea of propriety and good behavior. Vince’s mother, for instance, is obsessed with regular family meals, even while she reveals herself, at the end of the novel, to be as powerful a Mafia boss as her husband. Vince’s father values hard work and motivation and worries that his son is lazy and aimless; regarding Tommy, Vince’s thuggish and impulsive older brother, Vince’s father tells Vince: “Your brother–sometimes I wonder if he’s got brains or coleslaw in there. But his heart–that’s pure gold” (62). (Here, he is speaking of Tommy’s attempt to set Vince up with a prostitute, as an apology for messing up his date with Angela O’ Bannon.) Underscoring all of these values is the paramount value of family loyalty, which is what makes Vince’s situation so complicated: he knows his family to be criminals, yet he would feel immoral in betraying them.

The straighter characters in Vince’s life, meanwhile, tend to moralize far less. Mr. Mullinicks, Vince’s New Media teacher, may have a respectable job, but he reveals himself to be apathetic and morally neutral in his attitude towards Vince’s class website project.