Exit Party

The two versions of Kareem Fayed (dubbed “Kareem” and “Fayed” by Ibari) explore alternate responses to parenthood, responsibility, and personal crisis. The Kareem who arrives from his party in the post-collapse world is a round and dynamic character who finds an unexpected sense of purpose in the surveillance state caring for Nico’s children and raising them as his own. Displaced from his own timeline just as he was about to become a father, he is initially lost and afraid. However, he embraces the responsibility of raising his double’s neglected children. This Kareem is defined by his capacity for empathy and his willingness to build a new life centered on love and care, even within an oppressive society. He becomes a good parent and a loyal friend to Ibari, representing a man who finds personal fulfillment by embracing a duty his other self abandoned.

Fayed, the physicist and Resistance leader, acts as a foil to Kareem by choosing to prioritize his personal freedom and ideological desires over his responsibility to his family. He begins his arc as a brilliant scientist and husband but becomes emotionally distant after his children are born, admitting he “didn’t want to change anything” (252) about his life. He allows his wife, Nico, to shoulder the entire burden of parenting. After Nico disappears during their experiment, he quickly abdicates his parental duties, leaving his children neglected and, eventually, abandoning them entirely to lead the Resistance. The novel frames his commitment to a larger political cause as self-interested. He describes the teleportation experiments to Ibari saying, “We were making history. I remember just thinking, I've worked so hard to get here […] I was thinking about fame, Ibari, if we're being honest here […] I was thinking about immortality. I remember thinking that starting tomorrow, my life was going to be different. I was going to be really, really famous” (227). Fayed is a man who, when confronted with his own failings, chooses an abstract ideal over the tangible needs of his family.

Gloria and her parallel-world double, Nico, serve as foils who demonstrate drastically different reactions to trauma and loss. Both are round characters, but Gloria is largely static, while Nico is dynamic and proactive. Gloria is defined by the trauma of surviving a suicide bombing at a party in Highland Park—an event that leaves her emotionally paralyzed and causes her to retreat from the world and her responsibilities as a mother. She becomes a ghost in her own apartment, hiding in her remote work and unable to connect with her son, Sebastian. Her character illustrates how trauma can arrest a person’s development, leaving them in a state of perpetual fear and avoidance.

In contrast, Nico is galvanized by her loss. After she is accidentally transported from her home universe, her connection with her husband and two young children is severed, a fate she experiences as a living death. Despite this displacement, she channels her grief into a relentless search for a way home. Her scientific mind refuses to surrender to despair. In the absence of her own children, she finds a new purpose in becoming a maternal figure to Sebastian, the neglected son of her double, Gloria. Nico’s journey is one of resilience—she’s a character defined by her intelligence, determination, and her love for a family she can never reclaim.

Sebastian Li, the son of Gloria and Fayed, advances the plot in the novel’s Paris chapters through the theft of Swan Dive, the painting that belonged to his father, Kareem. He is a round and dynamic character whose motivations are rooted in a sense of parental abandonment and a longing for connection to the father he never knew. Raised by the emotionally absent Gloria and later by the grieving Nico, Sebastian is angry, adrift, and fixated on the Swan Dive painting as his only tangible link to his father’s identity. His obsession with The Connective Power of Art drives him to orchestrate the painting’s theft from Ari.

His plan, though initially successful, quickly unravels, leading to Ari’s accidental death and his own entanglement with a local criminal element to dispose of the body. This descent is a critical turning point, forcing him into a life of indebtedness to the criminal underworld. Sebastian’s arc is a tragic one, demonstrating how a desperate search for identity and belonging can lead to unforeseen and destructive consequences.

Felix Washington is a key transitional figure in Ari’s post-prison life, representing both the strangeness of the post-collapse world and the fleeting nature of connection within it. A former professional ballet dancer turned arms dealer, his character embodies the unexpected and often desperate paths people take to survive. He reintroduces Ari to the criminal underworld, and acts as both a gateway to a new life for her and also a kind of companion, albeit one she views as ill-suited for her. Felix’s tragic flaw—his carelessness and willful ignorance of danger—ultimately leads to his murder in Greece. His death forces Ari to once again reinvent herself, severing a bond that was always temporary.