Sasha is a thirty-five-year-old woman living in New York City, though her online dating profiles list her age as twenty-eight. She works as an assistant to Bennie and struggles with kleptomania, attending regular therapy sessions to manage her compulsive stealing. Beneath her secretive behavior, she carries the emotional weight of a difficult childhood and a wandering, self-destructive youth.

Bennie is a divorced music executive in his mid-forties who runs Sow's Ear Records. He suffers from acute anxieties about his fading youth and diminishing sex drive, leading him to consume gold flakes in his coffee as a peculiar ancient remedy. Despite his financial success, he harbors deep insecurities about his physical appearance and his background, while struggling to connect with his young son.

Lou is a highly successful, decadent music producer based in California. He discovers Bennie as a teenager and serves as a powerful mentor figure in his life. Lou lives a lifestyle of extremes, characterized by multiple marriages, affairs with young women, and a relentless, aggressive desire to avoid growing old.

Scotty is a former teenage bandmate of Bennie's who grows up to live a reclusive, disconnected life in New York City. Once a promising young musician in the punk scene, he views himself and his past with deep cynicism and harbors lingering resentment toward his old friends who achieved mainstream success.

Once known universally as "La Doll," Dolly is a highly sought-after public relations superstar whose career is destroyed by a mechanical malfunction at an elite event. She attempts to reinvent herself by taking on ethically dubious consulting work for a foreign dictator, hoping to secure a stable future for her young daughter.

Jocelyn is a teenage girl embedded in the San Francisco punk scene who becomes deeply involved with the much older music producer, Lou. Later in life, she pursues recovery from addiction, lives with her mother, and seeks to rebuild her education after years of substance abuse.

Rhea is Jocelyn's teenage best friend and a passionate member of the punk band The Flaming Dildos. She uses fashion and hair dye to assert her punk identity but feels deeply insecure about her freckles, often finding herself sidelined in the romantic dynamics of her friend group.

Lulu is Dolly's young daughter, who is exposed early on to her mother's high-stress and sometimes dangerous public relations career. Perceptive and direct, she acts as a stabilizing presence for her mother and grows to prefer straightforward, text-based communication over physical conversation.

Alex is a man who goes on a memorable first date with Sasha. Years later, he works in the modern music industry, taking on a covert social network marketing project for Bennie. He balances his secretive professional work with raising a young daughter alongside his academic wife.

Rob is Sasha's closest friend during her college years. Recovering from a recent suicide attempt, he struggles with complex desires and intense feelings of detachment from his own body. He relies heavily on his close bond with Sasha for emotional stability and fears losing her to her new relationship.

Drew is Sasha's college boyfriend, a fundamentally decent person who later becomes a doctor. While he tries to provide a stable environment for his family, he has difficulty communicating with his teenage son and carries the heavy emotional baggage of his experiences during his college years.

Stephanie is Bennie's wife, working as a publicist for the aging rock star Bosco. She attempts to integrate into affluent Crandale society but feels a growing disconnect in her marriage, carefully hiding parts of her social life from her husband while suspecting him of reverting to old habits.

Jules is Stephanie's brother and a former journalist. Recently released from prison, he moves in with Stephanie and Bennie and attempts to restart his writing career by profiling the eccentric musician Bosco. He suffers from a deteriorating mental state that impacts his professional assignments.

Bosco is an aging, once-famous rock star initially discovered by Bennie. Facing a severe cancer diagnosis, he embraces his decline by conceiving a highly theatrical "Suicide Tour," intending to make a public spectacle of his final days rather than fading quietly into obscurity.

Kitty is a young actress whose professional reputation has recently been tarnished. She accepts dubious employment from Dolly to act as a romantic interest for a military despot, and later agrees to an interview with Jules Jones that quickly spirals out of control.

Ted is Sasha's uncle, an art appreciator who tracks her down during her reckless years wandering in Italy. He feels a deeply protective, almost overly attached duty toward his niece, struggling to reconcile the troubled adult she has become with the innocent child he remembers.

Alison is Sasha and Drew's twelve-year-old daughter. Growing up in a desert suburb, she documents her life and her family's interpersonal conflicts using graphic slides rather than traditional written journals, reflecting the educational trends of her generation.

Lincoln is Sasha and Drew's thirteen-year-old son. He is deeply fascinated by the pauses in rock songs, collecting and analyzing them to create his own unique audio tracks, a hobby that frustrates his father.

Rolph is Lou's adolescent son. He is highly observant during a safari trip to Kenya, absorbing the complex, cynical adult dynamics around him while trying earnestly to secure his powerful father's affection.

Charlie is Lou's daughter, who accompanies her father on a vacation in Kenya. She deeply resents her father's new, young girlfriend, adopting an intimidating posture to cope with the changing dynamics of her family.

Mindy is an anthropology student and Lou's young girlfriend. She attempts to secure her place in Lou's chaotic life by viewing the social dynamics of their safari vacation through the detached, theoretical lens of her academic studies.

Alice is a teenage girl embedded in Bennie and Scotty's early social circle. She is the object of Bennie's intense affections but ultimately chooses Scotty, a rejection that leaves a lasting impact on Bennie's self-esteem.

Chris is Bennie's nine-year-old son. He is perceptive but often caught up in his father's erratic behavior and heavy anxieties about parenting, even tasting the gold flakes his father consumes.

Rebecca is Alex's wife and an academic scholar who studies the rapid evolution of language. She identifies words that have lost their meanings as "word casings" and maintains firm boundaries about keeping modern communication devices away from her toddler.

Coz is Sasha's therapist. He attempts to help her unpack her destructive behaviors and traumatic past, providing a safe space for her to process her feelings of shame and her hopes for transformation.