Benny is a young American who has recently left the Navy and now travels aimlessly along the East Coast. Identifying as a "schlemihl" (an inept or foolish person), he actively avoids adult responsibilities, opting instead for heavy drinking and short-lived jobs, such as hunting alligators in the New York City sewer system. He struggles with deep-seated self-loathing, making it difficult for him to accept genuine affection from others, and increasingly finds it easier to relate to inanimate objects than to human beings.

Herbert is an agitated young Englishman who is entirely consumed by his obsession with a mysterious historical figure known only as V. He pores over the journals and documents left behind by his late father, a former British spy, to stitch together a narrative out of disparate, subjective accounts. Highly detached from his immediate reality, he refers to himself in the third person and views the people around him primarily as tools for his investigation.

V. is a deeply mysterious and elusive figure whose exact identity remains unknown. She appears across multiple decades, continents, and subjective accounts, ranging from the European theater to colonial Africa and the Mediterranean. Often associated with the gradual replacement of human flesh with artificial prosthetics, she represents an ongoing historical puzzle that infects those who try to understand her.

Rachel is a comparatively wealthy and grounded young woman working as a receptionist at the Space/Time Employment Agency in New York. Unlike the detached, nihilistic members of the Whole Sick Crew, she maintains a sense of practical responsibility, frequently adopting a maternal role to bail her friends out of their financial and emotional crises. She continues to carry a lingering affection for Benny Profane despite their vastly different approaches to life.

Paola is a teenage immigrant from Malta whose racially ambiguous appearance allows her to easily slip into different roles and social groups. Burdened by a traumatic childhood shaped by the siege of Malta, she struggles to find stability in America. She moves fluidly between the sailors in Virginia and the bohemian artists in New York, retaining an inscrutable demeanor that both fascinates and frustrates the men around her.

A loud, abrasive, and frequently unhygienic man, Pig is a deserter from the US Navy who fully embraces the hedonistic lifestyle of the Whole Sick Crew. He rides a motorbike, drinks excessively, and constantly evades the military police who are searching for him. He acts as an enabler to Benny Profane's worst impulses and contributes heavily to the decadent atmosphere surrounding their social circle.

Esther is Rachel's deeply insecure roommate in New York City. Dissatisfied with her physical appearance, she seeks out cosmetic surgery, a process that plunges her into severe debt. She finds a strange, almost mystical pleasure in the painful medical procedures and becomes romantically entangled with her surgeon, complicating her already unstable life.

A cosmetic surgeon operating in New York, Schoenmaker entered the medical field after witnessing the horrific, botched facial reconstructions of WWI pilots. Over the decades, his original idealism has soured, and he now views his work through a manipulative, aesthetic lens. He persuades his vulnerable patients that surgery will reveal their "true" selves, treating them more like inanimate clay than human beings.

Fina is a young New York woman who acts as a spiritual and maternal guide for a local street gang known as the Playboys. She takes a sudden and intense interest in Benny Profane, attempting to draw him out of his emotional isolation. Despite her efforts to treat him with warmth and humanity, her affection only deepens his paranoia and self-hatred.

Angel is Fina's brother and works long hours hunting alligators beneath the streets of New York City. He frequently drinks heavily with his coworkers to cope with the bizarre nature of his job. He is highly protective of his sister, expressing frustration over her deep involvement with the dangerous Playboys street gang.

Sidney was a British intelligence agent who operated across the Mediterranean and North Africa during the turbulent years surrounding World War I. Representing an older, more gentlemanly era of spy craft, he grew increasingly disillusioned as global politics became bloodier and less predictable. The journals he left behind form the basis of his son's exhaustive search for V.

Fausto is a Maltese writer and former seminarian whose life was derailed by the brutal WWII bombing of Malta. His autobiographical *Confessions* detail his transition from a student of literature to a traumatized survivor seeking moral absolution in a ruined city. He observes the world with a heavy, philosophical sadness.

Roony works in the music industry, recording strange occurrences like street fights and obscure noises to package as entertainment. He is trapped in a toxic, failing marriage with his aggressively cynical wife. Increasingly despondent about the decadence and pointlessness of his social circle, he harbors an intense infatuation with Paola Maijstral as a potential escape.

Mafia is Roony Winsome's wife, deeply entrenched in the party scene of the Whole Sick Crew. She is openly aggressive, frequently unfaithful, and espouses highly controversial, antisemitic opinions. Her presence heavily contributes to her husband's deteriorating mental state.

McClintic is a traveling jazz saxophonist who plays exhausting gigs for wealthy college students before returning to his boarding house in Harlem. Unlike the ironically detached members of the Whole Sick Crew, he recognizes the danger of total nihilism. He lives by the personal mantra "keep cool but care" to maintain his emotional balance and humanity in a broken world.

Hugh is an elderly British explorer who carries deep psychological scars from an expedition to Antarctica, where a bizarre discovery triggered a profound existential crisis. He becomes obsessed with a colorful, hallucinatory concept or place he calls "Vheissu," which isolates him from conventional society and strains his relationship with his family.

Evan is the son of explorer Hugh Godolphin. Later serving as a dashing fighter pilot in WWI, he suffers catastrophic facial injuries in a plane crash. The poorly executed, experimental reconstructive surgery he receives leaves him severely disfigured, profoundly affecting the doctors and mechanics who admire him.

Kurt is a German engineer whose youth was spent working in South West Africa during a colonial uprising. Sealed off in a wealthy estate while violence raged outside, he attempted to remain a detached observer focused solely on his atmospheric radio data, but found himself slowly dragged into the surrounding madness and paranoia.

Slab is a cynical painter belonging to the Whole Sick Crew. Rejecting contemporary art movements, he exclusively paints an endless series of cheese Danishes. He relies heavily on the financial and emotional support of his friends while maintaining a front of complete ironic detachment.

Dewey is a musician and a core member of the Whole Sick Crew. He spends his time drinking heavily and moving from party to party, fully participating in the chaotic, directionless lifestyle of his friends.

Ploy is a short, toothless man who compensates for his small stature by aggressively picking fights with the largest people he can find. He is a fixture of the Norfolk bar scene and frequently runs from the military police.

Pappy is a sailor in the US Navy stationed in the Mediterranean during the Suez Crisis. He is legally married to Paola Maijstral, though they are currently estranged. He struggles to cope with her absence and the unresolved nature of their relationship.