Yale Tishman
One of the two main protagonists of the novel. Yale is a gay man in his early thirties who works at Northwestern University’s Brigg Gallery in 1980s Chicago. He grew up in a small town in Michigan with his father. His mother, an actress, left the family when Yale was very young and he feels the loss greatly. Unlike his boyfriend Charlie, who has a very supportive mother, Yale has no outward support from his family and so his friend group becomes his family.
He is fiercely loyal and dedicated to his friends and partner, Charlie. He loves art, though he studied finance and is good with numbers. His loyalty and kindness are shown not only with Charlie, but also with Cecily and Bill, colleagues that he takes the fall for at work when an acquisition goes wrong.
Back in Michigan when he was younger, Yale felt some shame at being gay because he didn’t have anyone to look up to or lead the way for him. Now, as an established adult in the city, Yale is confident in who he is and wants other young men to feel the same. He is kind and caring, hoping to impart positive experiences for other gay men he meets. Since he is such a loyal and caring friend, he feels a deep sense of betrayal when he finds out Charlie cheated on him and put his life in danger. After Nico’s death, he becomes close with Fiona, who plays a mothering role for him in the absence of a supportive family.
Throughout the novel, he is nostalgic for a brief moment in time when he first came to Chicago in his twenties and was unaware that he was living in a golden era of freedom, love, and happiness. With the coming of the AIDS crisis, his world comes crashing down and he witnesses close friends dying, which both angers and saddens him.
Fiona Marcus
One of the two main protagonists of the novel. She is Nico’s younger sister and becomes a close friend of Yale. The 2015 storyline is from her perspective, looking back on the 1980s and how it has affected the rest of her life.
When she was still a kid, her older brother Nico came out to their parents and was shunned. He leaves home to move downtown and Fiona tries to care for him by stealing food from the family home and bringing it to him. She becomes immersed in Nico’s world and befriends his friends. As a teenager, she is headstrong and also leaves home to join Nico in the city, shunning her parents for shutting out Nico. She is furious with her parents and the way they handle Nico’s illness and death. This pushes her further away from them and she becomes closer with her group of friends. In particular, she takes on a mothering, caring role for them as many of them become sick.
She is fiercely defensive of Yale when he becomes sick and pushes out his mother when she comes to see him as he is dying. She feels guilty for it later when she is going through her own problems with her daughter Claire, questioning what it is to be a real mother.
Nora Lerner
An elderly woman donating her art collection to the Brigg Gallery where Yale works. She is Fiona’s great-aunt. Her collection was amassed while she was an artist’s model in Paris in the 1920s. It consists of drawings and paintings from a variety of well-known artists, such as Modigliani, and is valued at upwards of $2 million. The caveat is that the collection must be shown in its entirety, including the lesser-known artists such as Ranko Novak.
Her life in Paris began before WWI as an art student, where she met fellow artists, some of whom would go on to become famous. At the onset of WWI, she moved back to America, only to relocate to Paris once again at the end of the War. By then, her former friends were all dead or altered from the war and she had no money to continue with art school. She became an artist’s model, posing for pictures in exchange for signed artwork. Her lover, a failed artist named Ranko Novak, was tortured by his experiences in the war and killed himself. Nora spends the rest of her life dedicated to his memory, cherishing him and hoping to have his artwork shown to the world in a gallery.
Nora is drawn to Yale, hoping he can handle the acquisition and showing of her collection because he is currently experiencing the deaths and trauma of AIDS within his friend group, which he feels is similar to her experience in WWI Europe.
Charlie Keene
Yale’s boyfriend and founder of a gay activism magazine. Charlie is confident, smart, and a born leader. He is very adept at public speaking and staunchly preaches safe sex and condoms through his magazine. He speaks poorly about closeted gay men who he refers to as “commuter gays”, cheating on their wives with men in public bathrooms at train stations. It is later revealed that he actually partakes in these activities behind Yale’s back and becomes infected with the virus.
His outward appearance of confidence is false, and he is always deeply afraid Yale will cheat on him, which causes him to act controlling with Yale. When he finds out he is sick, he doesn’t apologize to Yale for cheating, but ultimately Yale cares for him in the hospital. Charlie is a good advocate for rights and freedoms, yet he is also shown to be a hypocrite, consumed with his own outward appearance.
Cecily Pierce
A co-worker of Yale’s who eventually becomes a friend. She works for Northwestern University handling donations and comes to know Yale through Nora’s artwork bequest. When the acquisition becomes controversial, Yale takes the fall for Cecily, knowing she is a single mom who needs her job. Later when Yale is sick, Cecily helps care for him with Fiona, and they take turns visiting him and supporting him at the hospital.
Bill
Yale's boss at the Brigg Gallery. Bill is a middle-aged man approaching retirement who is married to a woman named Dolly. Yale suspects Bill is a closeted gay man, which is later revealed to be true. He is a supportive boss, but allows Yale to take the fall for him at work and keeps his own job. He is having an affair with Roman, as well as other men, and tries to pawn Roman off onto Yale. It is later implied that he is infected, since he chooses to forgo retirement and keep working, retaining his health insurance.
Roman
A PhD art history student from Northwestern who interns at the Brigg Gallery. He is meant to intern for Yale’s boss, Bill, but Bill asks to switch and take Yale’s intern instead. It is later revealed that Bill and Roman were having an affair, which Bill wanted to end, and hoped that Roman would become attached to Yale. Roman is young and from a large, small-town Mormon family. He appears to Yale as a deeply sheltered, innocent person. Yale believes Roman is a closeted gay man and is reminded of a younger version of himself, having grown up in a small town.
When Yale finds out that he is not infected with the HIV virus, he decides to move on with his life from Charlie and embark on a casual relationship with Roman. He believes Roman is a virgin and that he is acting as a mentor and providing Roman with a healthy example of being an out gay man. Roman is in actual fact sleeping with multiple men and passes on the HIV virus to Yale. He shows that he is uneducated about the virus, and misinformed on how it can be caught.
Claire
Fiona’s estranged daughter. Claire and Fiona have always had a strained relationship because Fiona has been consumed by her grief for her dead brother and close friends for Claire's entire life. Claire is headstrong, like her mother, choosing to be independent and eschew any attention from her parents. As a young adult, she joins a cult in Colorado and becomes romantically involved with Kurt Pierce. When they have a baby and the birth is complicated, Claire decides it is time for them to leave the cult. They move to Paris where they break up and share custody of their daughter Nicolette.
By the end of the novel, Claire is slowly allowing her parents back into her life, but remains guarded. She explains that she ultimately always felt that she had ruined her mother’s life, when in actuality, her mother was suffering from depression.
Kurt Pierce
Cecily’s son. Yale lives briefly with Cecily and a teenaged Kurt when he first breaks up with Charlie. Kurt eventually ends up with Fiona’s daughter, Claire and they join a cult together. They have a child and move to Paris after leaving the cult.
Nico Marcus
Fiona’s older brother who dies from AIDS just prior to the start of the novel. Nico was Yale’s first friend when he moved to Chicago and they bonded over their mutual passion for art. Through Nico, Yale meets his friend group which includes his future boyfriend Charlie, as well as his future best friend Fiona. This friend group becomes Yale's chosen family and a deeply important part of his life. Nico’s death haunts both Yale and Fiona, and his memorial serves as a backdrop to the beginning of the novel.
Terrence
Nico’s partner and a member of Yale’s friend group. Terrence dies from AIDS not long after Nico, with his death profoundly affecting Yale.
Asher Glass
A lawyer and close friend in Yale’s friend group. Yale has a crush on Asher that he always pushes away because he’s dating Charlie. Asher and Yale eventually acknowledge their feelings for each other years later when they are both sick and moving in different directions.
Asher is deeply involved in gay rights activism, as well as AIDS research and funding activities. He eventually gets a job in New York City, where he believes he can do more for the cause than in Chicago, and moves there. It is mentioned by Fiona that Asher is one of the survivors of the AIDS epidemic years later.
Julian Ames
A member of Yale’s friend group. Yale and Julian have a flirty relationship, which makes Charlie jealous. Yale is careful to never act on his desire for Julian, because of his loyalty to Charlie. When Julian finds out he has tested positive for the HIV virus, it is revealed that Charlie has actually cheated on Yale with Julian.
After his diagnosis, Julian moves in with his casual boyfriend Teddy, but feels smothered by his care. He decides he wants to leave Chicago and everyone he knows, to go away and die alone. He thinks he is doing everyone a favor by not allowing them to see him waste away. He stays with Yale for a couple days before catching a flight to Puerto Rico where he crashes with a friend before moving on and disappearing from everyone’s lives.
In 2015, Fiona is reunited with him and he reveals that he almost died in the 1990s right before a new drug came out and saved him.
Richard Campo
An artist and member of Yale’s friend group. Richard was previously married to a woman before coming out and is around 15 years older than the rest of the group. He is wealthy and begins a career as a photographer after coming out. He documents the good times, as well as the bad times after the AIDS crisis begins in their neighborhood in Chicago. He goes on to become a famous photographer, with a huge show in Paris that Fiona attends in 2015.
Serge
Richard’s French assistant and lover.
Teddy
A member of Yale’s friend group. He has an on-again off-again relationship with Julian. He is one of the few friends who doesn’t get infected with the virus, but ends up dying of a heart attack in the 1990s.
