Ursa Corregidora
Ursa is the protagonist of the story. She's a tenacious woman who has experienced her fair share of trauma in life. Associating romantic interest with pain and abuse, she's not eager to wind up in bed with anybody, but she's unable to resist her suitors. She has a series of trysts following her divorce which lead her to question whether or not her expectations of healthy romantic relationships have been tarnished by her grandmother's stories of slavery. Intent on becoming an autonomous healthy adult, Ursa sets out on mental walkabout to find her true purpose. In the end she feels that she can do her oppressed ancestors the greatest justice by using her talent for singing to tell their beautiful, tragic stories.
Simon Corregidora
He's the slave owner in Brazil who first raped her Great Gram. He was an unscrupulous businessman who forced his slaves to work as prostitutes for other men in order to benefit from their extra incomes. He also raped both Great Gram and their daughter, Ursa's grandma. His legacy has been passed down in Ursa's family ever since, in the form of his name and her great grandma's stories.
Ursa's Mom
She's a woman who has struggled with a great deal of adversity. She always seems to find herself caught up in unhealthy relationships. After years of making the same mistakes over again, she realized that she had lowered her expectations of romantic relationships as a result of her mother's stories that were repeated to her from a young age. She started to expect abuse and mistreatment and pain, even to desire it as sexually rewarding.
Mutt Thomas
He was briefly married to Ursa. He fell in love with her at the club where she was a singer, later ordering her to stop parading herself in front of men to sing. When she refused to quit her job, she upset him so much that he pushed her down a staircase. Mutt has anger management problems which caused him to make his biggest mistake ever, pushing her down the stairs so that she miscarried their baby and injured her uterus making her permanently unable to bear more children. They divorced shortly afterward, but Mutt spent the next twenty or so years missing Ursa. He approaches her later in the novel to restore their relationship, having realized his mistakes in the past and changed.
Tadpole McCormick
He is the owner of the club where Ursa sings, Happy's. He's a drunk who hides it cleverly. When Ursa moves in with him, she soon realizes how fickle his temper can be. He's just as abusive as Mutt was to her. After Ursa moves out, Tadpole starts sleeping with the woman who replaces her as lead singer at his club.
Cat Corregidora
Cat is Ursa's sister. She's an open lesbian who has had a profound influence on her more timid older sister. Cat helps Ursa to realize that she's projected her own same-sex attraction because she's afraid to engage in another abusive relationship with a man.
