Mr Pignati
Mr Pignati is the eponymously nicknamed protagonist of the novel. He is a widow and misses his wife, Conchita, whom he adored. The two shared a collection of ceramic pigs that began when he gave her a ceramic pig as a gift early on in their relationship so that she would remember his name. He is lonely now that his wife has died. The collection represents Conchita in a way and he likes to look at each of the pigs every day so that he can remember the occasion of each one being collected.
Overly trusting, Mr Pignati assumes everyone is as nice and as trustworthy as he is which is why he invites two virtual strangers, in John and Lorraine, into his home and his life. He enjoys their company because they give him the opportunity to be young again. He spends quite a bit of money on the kids but it is his personality that ends up being what they like the most about him.
Mr Pignati is a frequent visitor to the zoo and considers a baboon called Bobo to be his best friend in the world. This is both very sad and very endearing. He is happy to share this relationship with his two young friends. However, Mr Pignati is a man who has suffered too much loss. Losing the pigs, thanks to Norton's vandalism, is like losing his wife again. Losing Bobo is one loss too many, and the combination of shock and grief ends up killing him.
John Conlan
John is a troublemaker with a definite problem with and resentment of authority. He is smart but spends his time at school causing trouble and being verbally abusive with his teachers. He also hates his father, and considers him boring. John is very arrogant. He is good looking and he knows it, and also seems to think that because he is handsome he can get away with whatever he wants.
John has a brother who is considered to be completely perfect in every way by his parents. John wants to be an actor, not a corporate nine-to-five business person. This irks his dad, and is a stalemate in their relationship. John wants to be himself, not a carbon copy replica of his brother, and this is the source of most of the friction in his life.
Lorraine Jenson
On the face of it, the friendship between Lorraine and John is unlikely because she is as sensitive as he is boorish. She is a thoughtful young woman who is interested in pursuing a career in psychology or writing. She tries to be a steadying influence on John, for example, telling him that he should not have a party in Mr Pignati's house, but John ignores her sensible guidance and she always goes along with his schemes in the end. In this regard, Lorraine is very easily led.
Whilst John has a bad relationship with his father, Lorraine has a terrible relationship with her mother, who tells her repeatedly that she is not at all pretty. Lorraine is frightened of her mom; she is verbally and physically abused but tries to psychoanalyze her mother rather than ever getting really angry about the way she is treated.
Norton Kelly
Norton is a loser. He is a classmate of John and Lorraine and is an inveterate tagalong. He steals electronics to sell and having accompanied John and Lorraine to Mr Pignati's home the first time that they went there, he has worked out that there might be valuables there that he can steal. He plans to burgle the place and stupidly confides this to Lorraine and John. He gatecrashes John's party and destroys Mr Pignati's pigs, which triggers Mr Pignati's eventual demise.
John's Father
John's father is a recovering alcoholic who thinks that John's aspirations to be an actor are lunacy. He would prefer John be like his brother Kenneth who works alongside him at the Coffee Exchange, a job he finds stressful. He is stressed much of the time and does not seem to be relaxed around John at any point in their relationship.
John's Mother
John's mother is a neat-freak. She is constantly cleaning and wants calm in her life; she would prefer that John go out, visit a friend, or find something else to do so that he does not aggravate his father. She keeps him at arms length primarily because she doesn't understand him and does not care to try to.
Lorraine's Mother
Lorraine's mother is a single mom and has been so since before Lorraine was born. She is a hard worker in a stressful job as a carer. She associates Lorraine with the man who got her pregnant. This is not a good thing for Lorraine; her father was a cheat and contracted a sexually transmitted disease whilst cheating on her mother, which is why she divorced him.
Moreover, Lorraine's mother struggles to make ends meet, and makes up the difference where the ends don't meet by accepting kickbacks from funeral homes to which she refers the families of her patients once they have passed away. She also steals food from her employer.
Lorraine's mother is hard on Lorraine, and constantly tells her that she is not pretty enough. She has a softer side but rarely shows it and their relationship is not an obviously loving one.
