Alex Claremont-Diaz
Alex occupies the unofficial position of First Son of the United States through his status as Ellen’s son. He begins the novel with a clearly defined antagonism toward the heir to the British throne, but since this is a singularly 21st century fable, he eventually succumbs to a literary trope extremely popular at the time of publication in which a couple that winds up together by the end commence their relationship in a state of dual animosity.
Presidential children Alex’s age generally do not live in the White House. Since he is attending Georgetown University located in Washington, D.C., however, Alex’s bedroom while he pursues his romance with Prince Henry once housed the nursery where JFK’s daughter Caroline was raised. He is enrolled in Georgetown pursuing a degree in government and is entertaining the possibility of going on to law school.
The complicated relationship with the Prince of Wales began when the first came face-to-face at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. Alex’s recollection of that moment is that he very politely went up to Henry in order to introduce himself. The prince's response was something akin to noticing a cockroach in a place where a cockroach should not be. Ever since then, the tabloid newspapers in both countries have presented their lack of a relationship as an international feud.
Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, Prince of Wales
The title Prince of Wales is aristocratic code for heir to the throne. He is also the figure whom Alex views with a distaste not entirely absent of traditional American feelings of superiority toward members of royalty who gain everything simply by accident of birth without actually having to work for it. Henry turns out to be more than capable of earning whatever he wanted to accomplish were things ever to change and as such Alex discovers his bisexuality with the prince who is already very aware of his homosexuality.
The rumor has always been that upon Alex stepping forward to introduce himself in Rio, the prince turned to his official palace attendant with instructions to “get rid of him.” Upon later being confronted by Alex about this, Henry can only sheepishly reply that he didn’t realize Alex had heard. Later, he makes another confession much more passionately, informing Alex that he fell in love with him at first sight.
Another confession: Henry claims that were he not a prince, he would like to be a writer. To Alex’s suggestion that certainly a future king can do both, Henry responds that most people would be very surprised to learn all the choices about his life that are not his to make. The most significant choice he has insisted upon making and living with, it turns out, is admitting the truth when a media leak reveals to the world that the prince is homosexual.
Ellen Claremont
This is a novel that could only ever have gotten published a couple of decades deep into the 21st century. And even at that, it had to introduce a fairy tale element that is an admission of a lack of reality in order to make its way into mainstream discussion. The initial recognition of this fairy tale lack of reality is the character of Ellen Claremont, the first woman elected to the office President of the United States.
That Ellen is a woman who was able to outmaneuver the anti-democracy monster known as the Electoral College has the entirety of American history to implicate its fabulist characteristics.
She is divorced from the father of Alex, Senator Oscar Diaz. The fairy tale quality of her unlikely rise to the White House is cemented in the nickname she earned when she first ran for office: the Lometa Longshot, named for the small Texas town in which she was born. She finds herself placed in the complicated position of having to support her son emotionally as he falls in love while dealing with the obvious political implications involved in that relationship becoming public knowledge at the same time she is gearing up to run for re-election with unwanted campaign advice from her ex-husband.
Amy Chen
The fairytale quality of 21st century evolution in social structures is even represented in relatively minor characters. It took until the 1970s for the Secret Service to hire its first female agent. Agent Chen takes this relatively brief history of women in that agency to the next level: she is a transgender female with an unnamed non-trans wife.
Cassius
Cassius another agent with the Secret Service assigned to a detail providing security to members of the First Family. Popularly referred to as “Cash” he is spotted by Alex in a less professional milieu as part of a crowd during a CNN livestream. Alex identifies the jacket Cash is wearing—embroidered by Amy whose wife is straddling Cash’s shoulders during the livestream--as featuring the magenta, yellow, and cyan colors of the pansexual flag. Alex responds with a wild whoop of excitement of such celebratory intensity that he spills coffee all over George Bush’s favorite White House rug.
