Josephine is a uniquely gifted Black musician whose story takes place in the 1920s. Her talent is related to her neurodivergence, for her synesthesia allows her to experience sounds as colors and other things. When she is introduced to Delaney for the first time by his band members, they call her “Crazy Jo” (149). Other people refer to her neurodivergence in a way that is less problematic but still ableist and condescending. For example, Delaney initially thinks of her as a “fragile, odd being” (167), and Eunice, an employee at Ditmars, calls Josephine an “odd duck” (198). Josephine manages the more intense manifestations of her neurodivergence by writing down what she hears and what she wants to hear in her Compendium—her idiosyncratic system of musical notation.

In addition to her eccentricities, Josephine “dance[s] effortlessly,” has “perfect pitch,” and is “very pretty.” Her beauty and Delaney’s habit of keeping her hidden lead Bern to compare her to Shakespeare’s “Dark Lady.” This woman appears in Shakespeare’s sonnets, and he frequently mentions her dark skin tone, but never her name. Unlike Shakespeare, Delaney does not write sonnets about Josephine. Eboni initially guesses that Josephine is “his baby mama” (114), occupying a romantic role instead of a poetic one. However, they later discover that Delaney kept Josephine a secret because he stole her music.

At first, Josephine is grateful to Delaney for giving her a place to live and a job as his music teacher. When they meet, Josephine is unhoused. Slocumb doesn’t reveal much about her past other than the fact that she is from North Carolina and once had a relationship with a man named Howard. However, the details of this relationship remain a mystery. When Delaney gets her a job at Ditmars’s music publishing house, Josephine is even more appreciative. Like Bern, she reveres Delaney. Josephine thinks that all the positive things in her life were “all—all—because of Freddy Delaney” (223). When Delaney steals her music, however, her opinion of him changes.

Josephine’s character arc mirrors Bern’s in that they both idolize Delaney, and they are both disillusioned when they discover the mediocre and unethical reality of the man. Bern wants the world to know that Josephine wrote the music, not Delaney, and she wants the same thing. After Delaney has abused her, Josephine puts a few of her songs in standard musical notation and sells them to a rival music publisher. She also demands a proper byline, stating, “I want my name on it. I want it to say, Music by Josephine Reed” (467). About 100 years later, Bern finds this sheet music, and it is “the equivalent to a smoking gun [...] On the top right corner of each page, in clear and familiar handwriting: Music written by Josephine Reed” (535). This standard musical notation makes it possible to prove that Josephine wrote the songs that Delaney took credit for.

Delaney goes by many names, including Fred, Freddy, Frederic, and Frederick. After he tells Ditmars, “I’m gonna be Fred from now on” (281), Slocumb’s chapter subtitles somewhat mockingly change to refer to the character as “Fred,” almost as though Slocumb is humoring the antagonist. In this way, the structural elements of the novel emphasize the content. Bern insists that the correct way to spell Delaney’s name is without the final “K,” for near the end of his life, “[h]e’d decided his birth name, Frederick, was too gauche, too raw, too Midwestern” (546). These name changes reflect Delaney’s insecurity and ever-shifting identity, and as he ascends from a humble piano player to a celebrated “composer,” he secretly remains nothing more than the man who has stolen Josephine’s music. Accordingly, he becomes more racist and violent over the course of the novel.

Delaney, unlike Bern and Josephine, has a “fair complexion” and is from Indiana. When he reaches New York City, he has one goal: “to play music” (144). After selling one of Josephine’s songs, “Bring Back the Moon” (213), he tries to emulate her style and fails spectacularly, so he soon realizes that the only way to make his name in the music industry is to steal her creations outright. After he stops playing piano and starts selling her songs to Ditmars and pocketing the profits, Josephine eventually realizes that he “only cared about the Compendium,” not her (410). When Josephine sells her music to Miles, Delaney kills both of them to protect his secret. However, after murdering his ghostwriter, Delaney produces very poor music of his own, and his reputation declines in the late 1920s.

When Delaney claims that he lost the opera Red, the perception of this as a spectacular mistake makes him infamous. The phrase “Doing a Delaney” arises, commonly used to refer to losing something important (23). However, Delaney never lost the opera; Josephine hid it from him in the walls of their building’s elevator. When he tries to recreate the opera from her earlier notes, the audience hates it, so he dies by suicide after the premiere.

Slocumb never features Eboni’s point of view in the novel, and she is only portrayed from Bern’s perspective. Eboni and Bern first met when they worked for Jacques Simon at Columbia. She is introduced in Chapter 5 and appears in most of the chapters from Bern’s perspective. Eboni works with computers and is a “warm, compassionate woman who hid beneath the tough-talking South Bronx persona” (67). Bern frequently mentions that she is “brilliant” and “impressive.” She and Bern bond over their shared passion for finding the best pizza in New York City.

Over the course of the novel, Bern and Eboni’s friendship develops into a romance. Working together on Red and against the Foundation brings them together. Bern thinks that their investigation of Josephine is like a James Bond movie, but he admits that “she was James Bond” while “[h]e was willing to be her Bond boy” (364). Eboni doesn’t love the Delaney Foundation like Bern does, and her critical eye allows her to discern their darker secrets. She proves that Josephine wrote Delaney’s music by cracking the code of Josephine’s idiosyncratic musical notation, and Bern gives her credit for her work at the opera’s premiere.

Bern is initially hired by one of Frederick Delaney’s descendants, Mallory, to work on Red. Her defining feature is her “helmet hair glittering like fresh shoe polish” (420). She is well-educated and outwardly polite. At first, she is very supportive of Bern’s work and even hires an assistant for him. Eventually, she makes some racist remarks about Eboni and Bern. Mallory’s guilt for these remarks leads her to give Bern and Eboni more access to the Foundation’s resources than she was originally inclined to do. Initially, Mallory wants to preserve Delaney’s reputation and tries to keep Bern from leaking the information about Josephine’s authorship of Delaney’s music. However, at the end of the novel, Mallory goes against another descendant of Delaney’s, Kurt Delaney, and comes to believe that the secrets about Josephine should be revealed.

Kurt is more overtly racist than Mallory, and he is the clear antagonist in the chapters set in the 2020s. At the beginning of the novel, he holds an important position on the Foundation’s board. He uses his position to attack Bern and Eboni on an institutional level, as well as personally. Kurt is the one who hires police officers to assault Bern. When Bern brings this fact to the attention of the board, the other members no longer support Kurt. At the end of the novel, he is the only one who still wants to keep Josephine’s authorship a secret. This makes him a static character who refuses to change or grow.

During their research, Eboni and Bern meet Josephine’s cousin, Earlene. She sells them a trunk that contains Josephine’s lost Compendium, and she also becomes friends with Eboni. Earlene’s maiden name is Reed, like Josephine. The Reed family appears at the beginning and the end of the novel. Earlene’s family includes her daughters Myrtis and Sandra, as well as Judy, Kay, and Karl. These are all static characters with minor roles in the novel. At the end, Bern makes sure that they are present and recognized at the premiere of Red.