Zede
A poor girl from a happy family who used her time to get good at skills, eventually supporting herself as a talented seamstress. As an educated woman, she fell toward Communism politically, but that landed her in prison where she gave birth to Carlotta. Eventually, she and her daughter found refuge in San Francisco.
Carlotta
Carlotta is either very sex positive or very troubled; in either case, she is a common thread throughout the novel. She is Zede's daughter, and apparently, she is really into the menfolk. She ends up being the mistress of Suwelo. It isn't like she's the only one—everyone cheats with everyone in this book.
Fanny
Fanny is a feminist who realizes that she feels her husband's brand of masculinity is toxic to her because he feels he has the license to sleep with other women (Carlotta in fact). Fanny thinks that ultimately the problem lies in how her husband was taught to view gender from a young age. He thinks being able to sleep with women means he is powerful or something. Ultimately, she goes to therapy, and he finds peace himself, and then they reconcile.
Suwelo
Not exactly husband of the year, Suwelo is Fanny's spouse. He treats her well, but he also makes lots of excuses to just do whatever he wants. When he reads, he finds an entity named "Lissie" that acts almost like a character, but actually she is an archetypal "spirit" entity who brings Suwelo toward his maturity. That's the novel's way of saying, "It's part of Suwelo's mind." Suwelo's relationship to Lissie shows the reader that the reason he cheated was because he was insecure, not because he was proud.
Arveyda
Carlotta finds a rockstar and they hook up. She delivered him something that her mother sewed for him, a cape in fact, and while she was delivering the garment, they noticed they had sexual chemistry. Arveyda confides in her that his life in Indiana was very difficult, because people treated him differently because he is an ethnic Indian—even though, in a roundabout way, the state is literally named after India.
