Gabriel, the son.
Gabriel is a reporter, essentially, or perhaps he might consider himself a non-fiction essayist. His opinion isn't necessarily that his father is evil, but Gabriel does have a heck of a time trying to find some semblance of peace, especially with his father's illness and eventual death, especially since his father published an unfair, hateful review of his book.
Gabriel, the father.
This guilty old soul doesn't quite have what it takes to tell the truth to his son, but he does feel like talking about it. We learn this from his affair in physical therapy with one of the therapists, when he confides in her that the real reason he hates his son's book is because he was a government informant during WWII, and the book mis-characterized what it felt like to be involved. In other words, he felt the book was an unfair account of his involvement.
The affair.
There is a woman whom Gabriel (the elder) befriends in the course of his physical therapy. What we know about the affair is that during their romantic evenings alone, the father confides in this woman that he was a government informant during the war. This shameful admission comes as a confession, because the man dies shortly after. She takes his confession to the public.
Sara Guterman
This is a Jewish woman whose life in Germany came to a crashing halt when they started rounding up Jews in the Holocaust. Their family realized that they would likely need to escape the country, so they all fled to Colombia. This is the story that Gabriel (the journalist) tells in his book, A Life in Exile.
