Beginning Middle End Characters

Ma is the mother of Ella and the narrator for most of the novel; she has recently finished a book, a soundscape project, and a divorce. She travels through Europe and Sicily with her daughter, trying to reinvent their story and find a new beginning. She is defined by her fear of losing her daughter, her worry over her mother's memory, and her desire to return to writing. In the final chapter she is called Mama and is helped by Vito as fires close in.

Arc: She begins unable to start anything, then moves through an affair and assault with the tourist, an escape from Catania, and a drive toward Villa Casale. By the end she agrees to return the Proteus mosaic, helps Vito prepare the boat, and leaves the book's ending to Ella.

• Ella Camposanto (the daughter) — her daughter, who calls her Ma
• Manuela Astroni (Grandma) — her mother, whose memory is failing
• Nanna — her grandmother, who stole the Proteus mosaic
• The Tourist (the pianist) — the pianist whose apartment they stay in; her lover and later her assailant
• Vito — her host in Poscello and the boatman who helps them escape
• The narrator's ex-husband — her ex-husband, who appears in a dream

Ella is Ma's daughter, an observant and imaginative child who reads Pliny, plays chess, and asks hard questions about the world and her family. She insists that the stolen Proteus mosaic be returned and invents theories about Nanna using it to travel to the future. In the final chapter she becomes the narrator, writes postcards and captions, and decides to finish Ma's novel.

Arc: She moves from refusing to swim and crying at small disasters to swimming, surviving a jellyfish sting, leading an imaginary dig, and taking charge of the family story. Her memories and imagination increasingly blur with Ma's fiction.

• Ma (the narrator) — her mother
• Manuela Astroni (Grandma) — her grandmother, to whom she writes
• Nanna — her great-grandmother, whose theft she wants to reverse
• The Tourist (the pianist) — her mother's companion; she jokes about him as 'the tourist'
• Vito — an old boatman who promises her a place on his boat
• Anna — tour guide she jokingly calls 'sister Anna'
• Ella's brother — her brother in California, addressee of her postcard
• Jane-Marie — her childhood friend from third grade

The Tourist is the pianist whose Catania apartment Ma and Ella stay in while he is away, and with whom Ma begins an affair. He cooks, plays Chopin, takes them to concerts and the beach, but also refuses to lend his car, sees Ella as an obstacle, and sexually assaults Ma when she tries to leave. Ma steals his driver's license and leaves him.

Arc: He shifts from an absent, desirable host to a menacing antagonist; his return to Catania and his assault trigger Ma's escape.

• Ma (the narrator) — his guest and lover; he assaults her when she tries to leave
• Ella Camposanto (the daughter) — the child who plays chess with him and questions him
• Manuela Astroni (Grandma) — Ma's mother, who calls him the 'caballero de Catania'

Manuela is Ma's mother and Ella's grandmother, a woman devoted to translating Latin classics with an eco-radical group. She begins showing memory lapses, disorganization, and forgetfulness, which Ma tries to counteract with translation exercises. Later she goes offline to join a secret border action, asks Ma to visit Nanna's old house, and eventually reassures Ella that she is safe.

Arc: Her memory declines across the novel even as she becomes more politically active; Ella worries she is losing her memory like Nanna. In the end the finished book is sent to her to translate so she will not lose her memory.

• Ma (the narrator) — her daughter
• Ella Camposanto (the daughter) — her granddaughter
• Nanna — her mother, who had Alzheimer's and gave the mosaic to Ma
• Vito — her dear friend who shelters Ma and Ella
• The Tourist (the pianist) — she asks how it is going with the 'caballero de Catania'

Nanna is Ma's grandmother, who dressed as a man to work in archaeological digs and emigrated by ship after surviving a shipwreck. She stole a small Proteus mosaic from Villa Casale and later died in an asylum in Mexico City with Alzheimer's, haunted by hallucinations. Her theft and story anchor the novel's questions about memory, theft, and return.

Arc: Though dead, she recurs through family memory and Ma's retellings; Ella reinterprets her as someone who saw the future and wanted to forget it, and the mosaic is meant to be returned to the past.

• Ma (the narrator) — her granddaughter, to whom she gave the Proteus mosaic
• Ella Camposanto (the daughter) — her great-granddaughter
• Manuela Astroni (Grandma) — her daughter
• Paolo Orsi — the archaeologist who hired her, believing she was a man
• Proteus — the sea god whose image she stole

Vito is an older boatman and friend of Manuela's on the far side of the island who gives Ma and Ella shelter in Poscello as wildfires approach. He repairs his boat Nonno Vito in case military rescue boats do not come, promises Ella a place on it, and shares stories about swordfish, totano fishermen, and figs. He has burns from fig sap and keeps dogs and cats.

Arc: He remains a steady helper and becomes the means of evacuation, calling up that the boat is almost ready as the fire approaches.

• Ma (the narrator) — the daughter of his friend; he shelters her
• Ella Camposanto (the daughter) — promises her a place on his boat
• Manuela Astroni (Grandma) — her dear friend from a permaculture retreat

Proteus is the shape-shifting sea god of Greek myth, whose image is on the mosaic Nanna stole from Villa Casale. In the Odyssey he comes out of the sea at noon, changes form when held, and tells everything; the narrator links his name to 'first' or 'origin.' In the final chapter he undergoes a sequence of metamorphoses—swordfish, camera, rainstorm, jellyfish, donkey, toothbrush, fire, boat, book.

Arc: He is captured by Nanna, carried by Ma and Ella, and finally returned to the past; he also becomes the title of the book, Proteus: Prima Materia (Mistral), sent to Manuela.

• Nanna — the one who originally captured him
• Ma (the narrator) — one of the ones who carries and returns him
• Ella Camposanto (the daughter) — one of the ones who carries and returns him
• Menelaus — captures him in the Odyssey
• Eidothea — his daughter in the Odyssey

Anna is an art-history student from the University of Palermo who guides Ma, Ella, and a group of glass enthusiasts through Villa Casale. She corrects the record about who discovered the villa, emphasizes erased labor and migration as consequence, and tells the story of Arion and the dolphin. She says the missing mosaic might be Oceanus or Poseidon and that Arion and Proteus are half brothers.

Arc: She appears only as a guide, but her framing deepens the meaning of the stolen mosaic; she says 'Always there can be more' about hidden rooms.

• Ma (the narrator) — a visitor in her tour group who asks about Proteus
• Ella Camposanto (the daughter) — a young visitor who jokingly calls her 'sister Anna'

Pliny the Elder is the Roman author of Natural History, the red Loeb book that Ma and Ella read and use as an oracle. In the story within the final chapter, he sails to help friends during the eruption of Vesuvius, stays too long, and dies on the beach. His book becomes a prediction text for Ella and a link to the novel's themes of memory and catastrophe.

Arc: He is a historical figure whose death is recorded; his book persists as a physical object through the journey.

• Pliny the Younger — the writer who records his death

Pliny the Younger is the Roman writer who stayed behind to watch the eruption of Vesuvius and later wrote the account of Pliny the Elder's death. His description of the sea sucked backward is sent by Manuela to her granddaughter. He is present only through the letter that is retold.

Arc: He does not change; he is the witness who tells the story Pliny the Elder could no longer write.

• Pliny the Elder — the man whose death he records

Ma's ex-husband appears in a dream in which Ma visits him and his possible new wife, looking for a cat; the bed is divided by a plastic partition. He is the stepfather Ella asks about when she wants to know why Ma left him.

Arc: He exists only in memory and dream; no on-page change.

• Ma (the narrator) — her ex-husband
• Ella Camposanto (the daughter) — her stepfather

Ella's brother lives in California and is the addressee of a postcard in which Ella writes about being stung by a Medusa and becoming part jellyfish. He never appears in the story.

Arc: No arc; mentioned through the postcard.

• Ella Camposanto (the daughter) — his sister

Jane-Marie is Ella's third-grade friend; in Ella's memory they played dogs, with Jane-Marie as owner and Ella as the dog. Ella remembers that Ma disapproved of the friendship.

Arc: Appears only in Ella's memory during a café conversation.

• Ella Camposanto (the daughter) — her childhood friend
• Ma (the narrator) — the mother who disapproved of their friendship

The older refugee boy in Poscello lends Ella five euros with a swordfish head as a deposit, then lets her keep it. He jokes about using the bill as a sword against the immigration police.

Arc: No arc; a small act of generosity.

• Ella Camposanto (the daughter) — lends her five euros with a swordfish head as deposit

Paolo Orsi was the archaeologist who led excavations at Villa Casale in 1928 and 1929 and hired Nanna as a laborer, believing she was a man. He wanted laborers resistant to heat, diligent, and able to read the landscape.

Arc: No arc; appears in Ma's research.

• Nanna — the laborer he hired thinking she was a man

In the Odyssey passage, Menelaus hides inside a seal skin with Eidothea's help, pins down Proteus through his transformations, hears everything, and afterward wants only to forget. He is the mythic counterpoint to the novel's attempts to hold and return Proteus.

Arc: No arc; his story is told within the chapter.

• Proteus — the sea god he captures
• Eidothea — the god's daughter who helps him

Eidothea is Proteus's daughter; she tells Menelaus where to find Proteus and gives him the skin of a gutted seal for disguise. She appears only in the Odyssey passage.

Arc: No arc.

• Proteus — her father
• Menelaus — the man she helps capture her father

Paolo Nannini took aerial pictures of the Villa Casale ruins using a camera attached to a kite, mentioned in Ma's research about the site.

Arc: No arc.