nene
nene is the narrator of the novel, the one telling the story from the retrospective point of view. He is a young man who has traveled to the desert to meet Juan, whom he met during a stay at a psychiatric hospital when he was younger. nene is searching for something, running from something, though he is not sure what. He promises to take up Juan's project, but he is afraid to look too closely at the past.
Juan
Juan is an older man nene visits as he is dying in the Palace. Before he dies, he needs nene to promise that he will continue his project about Jan Gay.
Jan Gay
Jan Gay is a lesbian anthropologist whose research was co-opted for the Sex Variants book, which explores patterns of homosexuality. Jan was a self-made woman and a radical thinker who wanted to document lesbian lives in order to break the stigma around queerness. She was married to Zhenya, and briefly knew Juan as a child.
Zhenya Gay
Zhenya is Jan's partner and the spiritual, adoptive mother of Juan after meeting him as a child and briefly taking him in her charge. Zhenya was a brilliant artist who illustrated dozens of children's books with drawings of young Juan, who acted as her model.
Liam
Liam was nene's most recent serious relationship, which ended when Liam discovered that nene was still having sex with other men for money. Throughout the novel nene recounts the story of the relationship to Juan.
