Bing (Bernard)
Bing is probably one of the most vivid characters in the novel. He is a gifted Filipino boy who aspires to be a country musician or a saint. Bing is quietly struggling with his sexual identity and longs for Hakim, a popular boy in school. He is torn between living up to a particular image and letting his guard down to express his emotions. Aside from all that, he’s dealing with his father’s mental health, which he feels overshadowed by. His mother, Edna, is a hardworking salon worker. When Bing is bullied at school, his mother comforts him and assures him that he is loved and everything will be fine. In turn, he protects his mother, which further adds to the heavy responsibility he feels for his father and himself. By the end of the novel, Bing has come to terms with his sexuality, performing in a school music production in a flagrantly femme fashion, and is enrolling in a new school for the gifted.
Hina Hassani
Hina is a Muslim who works as a social worker, getting the job at the Rouge Hill Public School chapter of the Ontario Reads Literacy Program at the beginning of the novel. Her supervisor often discriminates against for wearing a hijab and displays a meddlesome, holier-than-thou attitude about Hina and her job performance even though it is abundantly clear to the reader that Hina is deeply invested in the center's community and is more than qualified for her job. Hina seeks not only to offer kids of this community language skills but to provide a haven where poverty, crime, drugs, and racism are left at the door. She witnesses the adverse effects these things have on child education. Hina is a complex individual, fully dedicated to serving and uplifting her community.
Victor
Victor is a young Black man. He is a beloved artist in his community, full of ambition and revolutionary ideas. Victor is one of those people who seem like he is going to make it and leave the community for bigger things. Unfortunately, the color of his skin, gender, and age prevent him from attaining all that: he is cornered by the police for painting a legal mural that he received a grant for, tossed into jail, and, due to the arrest, forbidden from continuing his schooling.
Laura Mitkowski
Laura is a young white girl. Laura’s father, Cory, is a white supremacist, while her mother is a drug addict. They have a repeated history of neglecting their daughter; most of the time, it is up to Laura to take care of herself. She is contemplative, reticent, and shy, but she comes to love the patient and kind Ms. Hina, as well as Bing and Sylvie, whom she meets at the center. She is starting to blossom, but her young life is cut short by the apartment fire. At the end of the novel, she is reunited with her father in the afterlife, who is now healed, whole, and able to love her as she deserves.
Sylvie Beaudoin
Sylvie is a Native girl living in the community home with her mother, father, and brother, Johnny, who is autistic. She is a savvy, sympathetic, witty, and creative young girl and becomes best friends with Bing. She loves her family though their situation sometimes frustrates her; she is always able to advocate for them and herself.
Cory Mitkowski
Laura's father. He is white, working-class (he calls himself white trash), a former skinhead (who still possesses racist, neo-con beliefs even though he does not violently act on them as he did in his youth). He loves Laura desperately but is unequipped to be a father. He is impatient, angry, selfish, and immature; he is very hard on himself and Laura as he struggles to parent his daughter when Laura's mother, Jessica, abandons her. He slowly unravels due to the pressures of taking care of Laura, and the two of them die in an apartment fire.
Jane Fulton
Hina's supervisor for the Ontario Reads Literacy Program. We only have access to her via her emails to Hina, but she comes across as rather fake, self-assured, and holier-than-thou. She is full of excessive "thank you's" and "let's get together for coffee and talk about this"; at the same time, she makes subtle accusations about Hina's comprehension of her job description and seems to want her to go above and beyond without compensation. When she criticizes Hina's choice to take a mental health day after Laura's death, suggesting that it is unprofessional, Hina contacts her union representative and Jane is removed from the position.
Marie Beaudoin
Sylvie and Johnny's loving but burdened mother. She has to deal with her husband, who has a gambling addiction and a bad injury that renders him unable to work, and her son's putative developmental disabilities, all the while living in straitened economic circumstances. Nevertheless, she is a tireless advocate for her children and evinces unwavering love for and devotion to them.
Johnny
The brother of Sylvie and the son of Marie. He is three years old and autistic. By the end of the novel, this diagnosis has been established and the family is looking to find ways to understand and connect with him.
Edna
Bing's mother. She is Filipina, a nail technician, and an extremely dedicated, warm, loving, and open-minded mother who never once makes Bing feel that his sexuality is a problem. She leaves Bing's father because his mental illness has made him violent and unpredictable.
Tita Mae
Edna's first friend in Canada. She is Vietnamese, a nail technician, and instrumental in helping Bing and Edna escape from Edna's husband. She gives them a place to stay and Edna a place to work.
Bing's Daddy
He has a mental illness of some sort that has made him violent, cruel, and unpredictable. Edna and Bing flee from him, though Bing always dreams of his healing and reconciling with him some day.
Sylvie's Dad
A big-rig driver who is addicted to gambling and has not been a good father and husband. He is injured permanently when he falls asleep at the wheel and his truck jackknifes.
Clara
A pretty, upper-class white girl in Sylvie and Bing's grade. She is bratty to them, but later in the novel, we are privy to her own unstable home life, characterized by an absent brother and squabbling parents.
Mr. George
The Beaudoins' elderly neighbor. He is Ojibwa and one of the only people Marie trusts. He often watches Sylvie when Marie has to take care of things with her husband. Sylvie is fascinated by the hole in his throat that he got from smoking too much.
Ivana
A massage therapist at Oasis Spa next door to the nail salon. She "had an air to her, like she knew everyone hated her or wanted her, or both" (68). She is kind to Bing and Sylvie and gives them little treasures.
Christy
A young, tattooed, skinny woman who lives at the shelter. Sylvie and her mother call her "Slutty Christy" because she always has new boyfriends. Marie does not approve of her but Sylvie likes her, especially when she lets her tell her stories. Christy eventually leaves the shelter to live with her new boyfriend Roy, but everyone knows she will be back because this is the way life usually goes for women in her circumstances.
Mrs. Finnegan
Bing and Sylvie's teacher.
Hakim
A handsome and wily boy in Bing and Sylvie's grade. Bing has a crush on him and is elated when Hakim kisses him under the mountain of snow that winter.
Jessica
Laura's mother, a drug addict. Cory thinks she is trashy, as she cannot take care of her daughter, but he also knows that she herself was abandoned when she was young and was put into a foster home.
Michelle
The shelter supervisor, a kind Black woman.
Cindy
A poor white woman who illegally breeds puppies. In the brief section of hers, it is clear that she is rather self-important, racist, grouchy, and critical.
Travis
Cindy's son.
Winsum
A Trinidadian woman who owns Everything Taste Good Caribbean restaurant. She is happy to have a break on Christmas Eve, though she is annoyed with her would-be-chef nephew, whom she hired at her sister's urging but who is not cooking in the traditional way he is supposed to.
Melvin
Winsum's nephew and Clive and Lorna's son. He wants to be a chef and takes liberties with the food to try to impress people.
Clive
Melvin's father, Lorna's husband, and Winsum's brother-in-law. A respectable businessman, he is secretly gay and has to live that part of his life clandestinely.
Lorna
Winsum's sister, Clive's wife, and Melvin's mother. She appears rather snobby and annoying.
Clara's Parents
Clara's father seems impatient with his emotional wife and the two of them fight all the time, which causes Clara distress.
Uncle Olly
Clara's uncle who lives with her family and is prone to telling long-winded stories.
Lady
A new nurse at Scarborough General Hospital's ER who has to work the Christmas Eve shift. She is the first to realize there is a fire in the apartment building and does her best to alert the residents.
Elder Fay
An elderly First Nations woman who comes to Rouge Hill to help the students process their grief after Laura's death in the fire.
Mrs. Rhodes
Rouge Hill Public School's counselor, who, Sylvie says, "likes to collect brown-people things and put them on her wall" (25). She is somewhat of a busybody and prone to making conclusions about the parents and students that ignore their humanity and efforts.
Ryan Hoffman
The union representative for the United Teacher's Union of Ontario who takes Hina's complaints. He sees a case for Islamophobia and reassures her that Jane Fulton's concerns about her behavior at work are not, in fact, actual issues. It is implied he helps get Jane removed.
Evalyn Chau
Hina's new supervisor. From her emails, she seems to be amiable, rational, and supportive. She recognizes Hina's value in the community and is committed to working with her.
Ms. Kamal
Laura and Cory's neighbor. She is Muslim and is friendly to Laura (until she sees the girl has lice, at which point she no longer lets her come over). At the end of the novel, after she dies, Laura stays around her because Mrs. Kamal thinks her spirit is that of her dead brother Youssef. Laura eventually leaves Mrs. Kamal, who is better able to let go of Youssef.
