Strangers in Time

Molly is one of the text’s main characters. She is 15 years old and grew up in a wealthy family in the rich Chelsea neighborhood of London. Her upbringing sheltered her from the realities of the war, as her parents paid the Cooper family to host Molly in the countryside when the fighting started. Molly feels guilty for the safety she enjoyed while others lived in constant danger. After meeting Charlie, Molly learns how to navigate the rubble-filled city, and she becomes accustomed to the routine of bomb raids. When Molly returns to London, she lives with her old nanny, Mrs. Pride, since both of her parents are missing. Molly is embarrassed by her familial situation, so she initially lies about her mother and father’s whereabouts. Her isolation wears heavy on her mind, which prompts her to seek Charlie out and develop their friendship, so she has someone to talk to about her troubles. Molly’s journey over the course of the novel involves becoming aware of and coming to terms with the implications of her class status.

Molly is a trained nurse who started working at 14 in a hospital in Leiston, where she treated soldiers’ traumatic injuries. Nurses compliment Molly for her “good bedside manner” that helps calm her patients (281), and both Charlie and Ignatius comment on her cool head and methodical ways during a crisis. Molly’s occupation and extensive interest in reading make her sound much older than she is. This creates a major internal conflict, as Molly feels like an adult and wants to be treated like one, but people still view her as an ignorant child. In addition to her age, Molly faces discrimination because she is a girl—she dreams of going to university and becoming a doctor, but the men she meets try to correct her goals, seeing nursing as more appropriate. By the end of the story, Molly is a successful psychiatrist and mother, and the proprietor of The Book Keep. The strong bonds she developed with Charlie and Ignatius during the war persist into adulthood, and she keeps in constant contact with Charlie.

Ignatius Oliver is one of the text’s main characters. Ignatius is the proprietor of The Book Keep, after inheriting it from his late wife Imogen. Ignatius is a trained mathematician and former schoolteacher, and he is a master at codes and encryption, having been interested in puzzles from a young age. He’s so talented in this field that his paper on cryptography inspired the Bletchley Park project, where he was offered a job. Ignatius regrets refusing this job offer, which could’ve put his skills to work, but he wanted to stay close to Imogen. However, he uses this skill in another way in his covert work as a double agent, as he offers encrypted false intelligence to Cedric.

Ignatius is “tall and too thin” with long brown hair (10). He usually wears a worn-out coat and hat when he isn’t in his air-raid warden uniform. When Charlie and Molly meet Ignatius, he’s still grieving Imogen’s death, which he feels guilty about not preventing. Ignatius habitually visits Imogen’s private study in the middle of the night, hoping to complete her manuscript, but he usually uses the time to ruminate on memories of her instead. Ignatius’s desire to keep Imogen alive is so strong that he frequently regurgitates her opinions rather than speak his mind. Molly calls attention to this habit, which helps Ignatius regain confidence in himself and his accomplishments. This contributes to Ignatius’s arc over the course of the novel, as he gains closure about Imogen’s death and opens himself up to forming a new family with Molly and Charlie.

Ignatius is a volunteer air-raid warden who received the George Medal for bravery, though he doesn’t like to acknowledge this honor. He likes helping people, and he feels immediately paternal toward Charlie and Molly. When they have nowhere else to live, he readily accepts them into his home, even though he can’t afford to support three people. His bond with the children becomes so strong that Ignatius changes his will to leave Molly and Charlie The Book Keep, so they’ll always have a home. Though the text initially paints Ignatius as sneaky due to the mystery surrounding his spying, Molly and Charlie come to know him as a kind, brave, and selfless man. Ignatius dies in a V-2 rocket bombing while on duty as a warden.

Gran is a minor, static character and Charlie’s maternal grandmother. She is Charlie’s last living relative and works in a bakeshop to support them, though she could’ve been a nurse with all her self-education. Gran is a staunch supporter of education and wants Charlie to complete his schooling instead of working. Charlie thinks Gran is extremely smart and trusts everything she says. 

In the novel, Gran serves as an example of London’s working-class poor, and she is often the mouthpiece for the inequities that Baldacci wants to expose. As the war rages on, Gran becomes suspicious of the government, especially concerning food programs. Gran frequently rants about government ineptitude and the unequal experiences of London’s rich and poor. Gran frequently laments her age and worries endlessly about Charlie. When her wages get cut in half, the stress of having to find a new house, coupled with the normal stress of the war, leads to her heart giving out.

Lonzo Rossi and Eddie Gray are minor characters, orphans who live together on the streets after running away from a state-run orphanage. They are a few years older than Charlie, and they are hardened by a life of crime. Lonzo is “half a foot taller than Charlie” (84) while Eddie is shorter. They’re also opposites in personality: Where Lonzo is a loudmouth, Eddie is reserved. Charlie sometimes steals with the boys and splits the spoils, and Eddie even gifts Charlie a homemade lockpicking tool. Though Charlie considers Lonzo and Eddie his friends, he’s also scared of them, since they aren’t afraid to threaten Charlie and his loved ones to get what they want.

Eddie dies in a tragic accident while trying to steal from The Book Keep, and the incident impacts Lonzo deeply, since he feels responsible for Eddie’s death. Lonzo tries to join the army, but he gets severely abused in police custody. Lonzo ultimately dies from his injuries, though he’s able to apologize both to Eddie—through writing—and Charlie before his death. Lonzo and Eddie illustrate the life that Charlie could’ve easily fallen into if he didn’t have the support of Gran, Molly, and Ignatius.

Mr. Henry Wakefield and Mrs. Eloise Wakefield are minor characters and Molly’s parents. Their disappearance from Molly’s life is a major mystery in the narrative. Molly remembers her mother as being nervous and overly preoccupied with Molly. After being separated from Molly and raped in a bomb shelter, Mrs. Wakefield’s mental health condition worsens rapidly. She becomes violent, especially with men, and hallucinates that Molly is at home. When Molly finally visits her mother in the psychiatric hospital, Mrs. Wakefield has grey hair, is bloated from terminal kidney disease, and can hardly stay lucid due to several lobotomies. She dies in the Beneficial Institute’s care, and her character exemplifies both the traumatic effects of her rape and the deficiencies in the mental health care system of the time.

Mr. Wakefield worked covertly for the War Office, and during the war, he was placed undercover in the Ministry of Food. He was once patriotic, but after his wife’s rape and the government’s lack of response to it, he grows disillusioned. He uses his government resources to track down his wife’s attackers and kill them, then tries to kidnap his wife from the psychiatric hospital so they can live out their final days together in Scotland. He dies in a crash, speeding away from the Institute.

Imogen Oliver is a minor, dynamic character who appears in the text only through her husband Ignatius’s memory. Imogen and Ignatius met in university, where she was bright, extremely outgoing, and willing to debate with anyone. She was passionate and opinionated, and Ignatius often had to soothe her when she worked herself up with complex ideas. Imogen cared deeply about the power of books and literature to comfort those in distress. She inherited The Book Keep from her father, John Bradstreet, a well-connected statesman, and was in the process of writing her own book about the war. 

Imogen became a spy for the Germans with the flawed logic that she was helping to avoid an invasion. When she was forced to confront the outcomes of her spying—the deaths of British soldiers and citizens—her guilt was all-consuming, and she “[objected] to her existence” (403). Imogen died by suicide at the Beneficial Institute by jumping into the sea. Her character illustrates the complexity of the war and the regrets that people feel for their actions, but she also offers a positive influence in the narrative as someone who chooses to open her bookstore in a lower-income neighborhood, believing in everyone’s right to accessible knowledge.

Dr. Stephens and Dr. Foyle are minor, symbolic characters who represent the failings of historical medicine to address trauma. Dr. Stephens is the head doctor at the Beneficial Institute, and Dr. Foyle is his colleague. Dr. Foyle introduces experimental surgical treatments to the psychiatric hospital, though these procedures have a low rate of success. The text shows Dr. Stephens and Dr. Foyle usually exhausted, overwhelmed by the number of patients, the complexities of issues, and the lack of funding. Despite their best efforts, both Dr. Stephens and Dr. Foyle feel unable to truly heal their patients with their field’s current level of understanding.