Coleman is a 71-year-old retired classics professor and former Dean of Faculty at Athena College. After an offhand comment in class is interpreted as a racial slur, he resigns in disgrace, sparking a personal crisis. Obsessed with clearing his reputation, he seeks out a secluded life while simultaneously attempting to reclaim his vitality through a controversial new romance.

Faunia is a 34-year-old woman who works as a janitor at Athena College and a farmhand at a local dairy farm. Presenting herself to the world as illiterate, she guards a complex inner life after surviving severe abuse from her stepfather and ex-husband, as well as the tragic deaths of her two children in a house fire.

Nathan is a solitary writer living in rural New England. Dealing with impotence and incontinence following prostate cancer treatments, he lives a mostly isolated existence until he becomes fascinated by his neighbor's dramatic fall from grace.

Lester is Faunia's violent ex-husband and a Vietnam War veteran struggling with severe mental health issues. Institutionalized after his children died in a house fire, he currently attends a veterans' support group while harboring intense inner rage and stalking Faunia's romantic partners.

Delphine is a French intellectual and professor at Athena College. She relocated to the United States to escape the shadow of her famous mother. Operating with a rigid sense of academic superiority, she develops a volatile, obsessive fixation on Coleman.

Steena is a white woman who dated Coleman when they were both students at NYU following World War II. She represents Coleman's first major heartbreak and a defining moment in his early adult life.

Herb is the first African American political science professor hired at Athena College. Appointed during Coleman's tenure as Dean of Faculty, he chooses political self-preservation over defending Coleman during the uproar.

Nelson serves as Coleman's lawyer. He provides pragmatic legal counsel, hiring a handwriting expert to investigate anonymous notes and bluntly advising his client to distance himself from his controversial romance.

Smoky is the head of the physical plant at Athena College. A married man, he previously maintained a secret romance with Faunia but ended it abruptly after facing intense intimidation from her ex-husband.

Iris is Coleman's late wife, raised in an unorthodox Jewish household. Her sudden death shortly after Coleman's resignation leaves him grieving and convinced that the stress of the college scandal directly caused her demise.

Lisa is Coleman and Iris's daughter. Working with children who have reading difficulties, she struggles to accept her father's new life choices following her mother's death.

Mark is one of Coleman and Iris's sons. He maintains a strained, distant relationship with his father, choosing estrangement over engagement with the family's escalating dramas.

Jeffrey is one of Coleman and Iris's sons. He directly confronts his father about the intense rumors circulating in the community, acting as a conduit for the public's judgment.

Michael is one of Coleman and Iris's children. Like his siblings, he attempts to manage the intense public scrutiny and private grief that follow his mother's death and his father's scandal.

Ernestine is Coleman's sister. She represents the close-knit family environment he experienced growing up, standing in direct contrast to the isolated life he eventually chooses to build.

Walter is Coleman's brother. Intensely proud and deeply hurt by his sibling's choices, he demands a strict, unyielding separation from Coleman to protect their mother's feelings.

Louie is a Vietnam veteran who leads a local support group. He actively tries to help troubled veterans transition back into society by organizing therapeutic group outings and exposure exercises.

Doc is a former dentist who teaches upper-class youth how to box. He travels with his young fighters and offers practical, defensive advice both inside and outside the ring.

Prince is a crow kept at the Audubon Society who cannot interact with other crows because they attack him. Having been hand-raised by humans, he is isolated from his own kind, providing Faunia with a sense of kinship.