Ma Lou
Ma Lou is an elderly woman who works in a market in Port-au-Prince selling produce. Her husband died young and her son, Richard, lives in France and no longer has a relationship with her. Ma Lou sent Richard to boarding school to provide him with more opportunities and Richard broke her heart by ignoring her from then on. He distanced himself from Ma Lou and eventually limited their contact to a check he sent her every few months. When Richard leaves behind his daughter Anne in Haiti, Ma Lou tries to make up for his absence and helps raise her granddaughter. While Ma Lou considers herself a simple market woman, her role provides her a vantage point to witness all of Haitian society. She is a great force and maternal figure in the novel. After the earthquake, her strength and resilience guides other characters who are lost and unsure how life can continue after such devastation. Ma Lou watches over them and holds their stories and pain. She remembers a time when Haitians were more connected with Voduo culture and religion; she believes in the power of reconnecting the old gods and ancestors. At the end of the novel, Ma Lou gets a moment to take care of herself: she leads the generations of women on a trip to honor the dead and heal.
Anne
Anne is Richard’s daughter and Ma Lou’s granddaughter. Richard abandons Anne and her mother before Anne is born and Anne is raised by her mother and Ma Lou. Aside from one brief encounter, Richard’s only involvement in Anne's life is financial. He pays for her to attend private school in Haiti and afterward for her higher education in the United States. Having been raised by women, the world of men and fathers is a mystery to Anne.
Anne becomes an architect focused on designing affordable housing for a global NGO in Rwanda. She dreams of using her skills to help Haiti and, six months after the earthquake, she returns to try. She spends time in camps surveying the survivors and trying to get them placed into secure housing. However, Anne is overwhelmed by the sheer need and suffering. Feeling helpless to make any meaningful difference, Anne returns to her work in Rwanda. On top of the national tragedy, Anne is dealing with the personal loss of her mother, who died weeks before the earthquake, and Richard who died in the earthquake. Anne starts to find healing through the process of designing plans for the rebuilding of an iconic cathedral which was partially destroyed in the earthquake. Anne joins Ma Lou and other female characters at the end of the novel on this path toward healing through honoring the dead while building hope for a better future.
Richard
Richard is a top executive at a French company that sells bottled water; he lives in Paris with his wife and two children. Richard is egotistical and ambitious. Ma Lou enrolled Richard in boarding school as a teenager, and from that time Richard intentionally began to distance himself from his mother and all she represents. As a young man, Richard moves to France and recreates himself into his image of success. He leaves behind a secret daughter in Haiti named Anne. Richard helps support Anne financially but is never involved in her life. When his wife finds out about Anne, Richard’s neat life is turned upside down. He promises Anne that he will come to her mother’s funeral, but after arriving in Haiti he decides to attend a business meeting instead of going to the funeral. On the day of the earthquake, Richard goes to the beach hoping to cleanse himself. In the water, he decides he needs to take responsibility for his family and be a better father to Anne. However, just as he is coming out of the water a giant wave caused by the earthquake swallows him and Richard drowns.
Sara
Sara is the mother of Jonas and his two sisters. Unlike her husband Olivier, Sara is content with a simple life. For her, family is the most important thing and she is a loving wife and mother. Then the earthquake comes and tears her family apart. Although Sara survives, physically unscathed, her daughters are crushed by a collapsed house and killed. Jonas is severely injured and his leg must be amputated. Sara is haunted by these memories and tries to distance herself from their horror. At first, Olivier and Sara take care of Jonas together, but after Olivier disappears Sara is left to care for their dying son on her own. When Jonas dies, Sara is alone in the IDP camp. Finding a scrap of paper with Woko, Olivier’s nickname for her, written on it, Sara holds onto the hope that one day Olivier will return to her. For a long time, Sara all but loses touch with reality around her. The grief and pain she goes through as a mother is just too much. Ma Lou, Loko, and others in the camp help take care of her when she cannot do it herself. Sara is convinced the spirits of her dead children are with her. Sara decides to try and communicate with the spirit of her daughter, however, in the process she accidentally lights her tent on fire. Paul, Taffia and others save Sara; from then on Sara lives in Taffia’s family's tent. Being around other people helps Sara come back to herself. She helps take care of Taffia’s new baby but always finds comfort in the idea that she is accompanied by the spirits of her children.
Jonas
Jonas is the oldest child of Sara and Olivier. He is eleven years old and lives with his parents and two younger sisters in a small house in Port-au-Prince. Jonas loves to run and dreams of being a soccer player one day. He is observant and counts everything around him. Jonas runs errands both for his family and Ma Lou; he makes deliveries up to the hotel where Sonia and Dieudonné work before school. The day of the earthquake, Jonas stops by Tatie’s house to watch TV. When Tatie’s house collapses, Jonas is buried underneath. Jonas’s sisters die but they are able to rescue Jonas. Jonas's leg has to be amputated due to his injuries; without adequate supplies, he must face this ordeal without anesthesia. With their home destroyed, Oliver, Jonas, and Sara end up living in one of the IDP camps. With limited access to clean water and medical supplies, infection sets in Jonas’s leg. Olivier abandons Sara and Jonas in the camp. Through a daze of grief, Sara tries to care for Jonas but his body is too weak to fight off infection and he dies. However, the spirits of Jonas and his sisters stay with their mother in the camp. Both Olivier and Sara are haunted by what happened to Jonas, but Sara finds comfort in the idea that Jonas still accompanies her in some way.
Olivier
Olivier is Sara’s husband and father of Jonas. He likes expensive things and is frustrated that his work as an accountant only barely supports the family. Olivier and Sara have a loving and respectful marriage. When the earthquake kills their daughters and injures Jonas, Olivier jumps into action. However, witnessing the doctors amputate Jonas’s leg without anesthesia breaks something in Olivier. For a few weeks, Olivier helps Sara take care of Jonas but then infection sets in. Under the pretext of looking for work in another camp, Olivier leaves Sara and Jonas. The other camp is just as dire, and Olivier is confronted with the reality that he abandoned his family because he could not face the pain of losing his son. Olivier tries to escape his guilt, shame, and grief in alcohol but it only fuels his anger. The conditions in the camps are dehumanizing and only the idea of returning to Sara stops Olivier from committing suicide. One night, a group of young men attack Olivier and nearly rape him. Olivier is saved by men on a nightly patrol of the camp but the shame of what they saw puts Olivier over the edge. The next day, Olivier runs in front of a truck thinking only of ending his suffering. He dies without ever seeing his family again.
Taffia
At fifteen, Taffia is the youngest in her family. Taffia is in many ways a typical teenager; she is consumed with thoughts of school, friends, popularity, and telenovelas. Taffia looks up to her older sister Sonia and misses her brother Didier, whom she feels distant from after he moved to the United States. Despite growing up in difficult circumstances, Taffia still maintains an innocence that her other siblings (Sonia, Didier, and Paul) have lost. However, after the earthquake everything changes for Taffia.
Her aunt Tatie dies and Taffia and her family lose their home and most of their possessions. Like thousands of others, they move into Internally Displaced Persons camps, and Taffia tries to adapt to their new circumstances. However, a former classmate begins to terrorize Taffia in the camp. He is furious that she rejects his advances and one night he, and some friends, rape Taffia. Taffia is consumed by trauma and shame and does not share openly with anyone what happened to her. However, when Taffia becomes pregnant many of them guess. Initially Taffia wants nothing to do with the child growing inside her, but the pregnancy forces Taffia to find a way forward. Her child is born and women in her life rally around Taffia to support her and her child. Even so, Taffia struggles to make sense of her life before and after the earthquake. For Taffia, the sexual assault she survived was more traumatic than the earthquake.
Sonia
Sonia is strikingly beautiful. She grows up watching her mother work as a maid in the homes of the wealthy. As a teenager, Sonia discovers that she was conceived through rape after her mother was forced to have sex with one of her employers. From that moment, Sonia decides to choose a different path but has limited options for what that could be. Sonia enters into sex work and leverages her beauty to make men and women pay for their desire. At seventeen, Sonia meets Dieudonné; the two connect and find safety and understanding in one another. Although many think Dieudonné is Sonia’s pimp and lover, the two are both queer. Theirs is a platonic love, a direct contrast to the transactional and purely physical work of Sonia’s job. Sonia's encounters with men are for business. However, her interactions with women help her maintain a belief in love. Sonia and Dieudonné work with wealthy Haitians and foreigners who live apart from the rest of Port-au-Prince in luxury and have disdain for those below them. Like Dieudonné, Sonia dreams of making enough money to buy a house and build a life away from the poverty she grew up in. Even though her family is ashamed of her work, Sonia helps support them. Sonia and Dieudonné are at the hotel the day the earthquake strikes. They both survive. Afterward, Sonia lives with her family in the camp as Dieudonné looks for other opportunities for them.
Didier
Didier is the oldest of his siblings. An aspiring musician, he moves to Boston in 2005 to pursue a career in music. However, life is much more difficult than he imagined and he ends up driving a taxi to make ends meet. Didier is looked down on for being Black and a Haitian immigrant, and is beaten nearly to death after a supposed friend sends him into a dangerous situation. Didier finds the people of Boston cruel and selfish. In his loneliness, Didier turns to religion to try and find answers and comfort. Didier worries about his family, but feels helpless to remedy many of the problems that his family and Haitians at large face. He finds an outlet in his music and tries to use music as a way to connect with his sister Taffia and give her strength. When the earthquake hits, Didier is left without any news of his family for weeks. He feels \ the pain of absence, knowing his family is suffering and he is too far away to help.
Leopold
Leopold is a distant cousin of Dieudonné’s from Tinidad. He was raised by a single mother after his father left. Although she tried to keep him on the right path, Leopold got involved in the drug trade at a young age. By sixteen, Leopold had his own business which he grows into a drug trafficking business. Along the way, Leopold leaves a string of children that he does not take responsibility for. At twenty five, at the arrival of his fourth child, Leopold decides he wants to be a more involved father. He provides financially for his daughter Mathilde but is unsure how to build a relationship with her. His work takes him to Haiti, where his ancestors are from, and he finds a second home there. Leopold and Dieudonné become close and work out of the same hotel. The day of the earthquake, Leopold is riding the elevator in the hotel. The elevator wire snaps and the elevator plummets to the ground. Leopold is trapped inside with no food, water, and a broken arm for three days. During this time, he contemplates his life and finds it lacking. He realizes Mathilde is the most important thing to him. After he is rescued, Leopold returns to Trinidad and completely turns his life around. He quits drug trafficking, becomes a devoted father to Mathilde, and rebuilds his relationship with his mother. Leopold never shares with his family what led to his transformation.
Diuedonné
Dieudonné is tall, muscular, and ambitious. He works as a fixer, helping to get the wealthy car services, drugs, sex, or anything else they want. Richard and Diuedonné are cousins but Richard limits their relationship to business. Diuedonné grew up poor and was raised by an uncle after his mother died. This uncle was banished by the family for being gay. He meets Sonia at a club and the two connect on a profound level. From the outside, everyone thinks the two are a couple but both are in fact queer. The two build a platonic relationship based on mutual respect, love, and a shared desire to eventually escape their current line of work. Dieudonné dreams of one day being able to buy a house in the hills for him and his chosen family. Dieudonné is protective of the people he loves. He guards Sonia from unwanted attention, including that of his friend Leopold, and makes sure she only takes clients she consents to. The morning of the earthquake, Dieudonné feels that something is wrong. This feeling follows him and Sonia around all day. Eventually they step out of the hotel where they work just minutes before the earthquake hits. Dieudonné’s sense of unease saves their lives as behind them the hotel collapses, killing nearly everyone inside.
Paul
Paul is one of the few characters in the novel who does not narrate his own chapter. Everyone in his family, including his three siblings Sonia, Didier and Taffia, is worried about him. As a boy, Paul was skinny and sweet but after he was sexually molested by a priest as a child things started to change. Paul retreated inward, rarely talking with his family. The only person he ever confided in about it was his aunt Tatie. Paul’s father is an alcoholic who is rarely around and Didier moves to the U.S. just as Paul is entering adolescence. Without direction, Paul becomes fascinated with the makout, a civilian militia group in Haiti. Never having dealt with the trauma he experienced as a child, Paul is drawn to these examples of strength and power believing that if he models tough and aggressive men no one will take advantage of him again. After the earthquake, Paul watches with admiration as bands of young men form in the camps. These quasi gangs steal, intimidate, and commit countless acts sexual violence. Paul joins one of these groups. His family is already burned by simply trying to survive and feels helpless to stop him. For a while, Paul disappears from the camp. He never shares with his family what he did during that time. However, sometime after Taffia’s attack, Paul has a change of heart. He admits to Taffia that he realizes what he and the other boys were doing was wrong.
Tatie
Tatie is the aunt of Sonia, Didier, Paul, and Taffia. She lives near them in her own house. Tatie has a television and because of this her house becomes a gathering point for the neighborhood. People come over to watch telenovelas and other shows. Her house collapses during the earthquake and Tatie is killed.
Patricia
Patricia is Richard's wife. She is white, French, and upper class, all things that drew Richard to her. Richard and Patricia have two children together, something Richard pressured Patricia into doing. Patricia married Richard in part to spite the bourgeois society she comes from, knowing that because of Richard's ambition she will still be comfortable economically. After Patricia finds out Richard has a secret daughter she decides to leave him and take their two children with her. This sparks a crisis in Richard that prompts him to return to Haiti after so many years.
Loko
Is a traditional Vodou healer. Had to escape his home after being attacked by a priest. Lives next to Sara and Taffia in the camps. Water collector and looks out for Sara making sure she has water. Helps take care of Jonas as he is dying and helps save Sara when her tent catches on fire.
Lucien
Lucien is a former classmate of Anne’s. Although he has a masters in engineering, he cannot find enough work in Haiti and takes on odd jobs for extra money. Dieudonné asks him to take Richard to the beach the day of the earthquake and there Lucien witnesses a wave, caused by the earthquake, swallow Richard. Lucien is the one to inform Anne that her father died.
