American War

Gaines is an ex-United States solder and surgeon who becomes a terrorist recruiter for the Southern cause. When he first meets 12-year-old Sarat, he is around 60 years old and a half-foot shorter than her. As a young man, Gaines serves in the U.S. military in the Middle East where he meets Joe, a man who it is strongly suggested recruited him to participate in insurgent activities.

Though born in upstate New York, Gaines aligns himself with the Southern Cause. When federal authorities arrest and detain Gaines, they threaten to kill his wife and daughter, who live in the Bouazizi Union. In return for their protection, Gaines gives up the identities of numerous insurgents, including Sarat. Later, Gaines suffers a stroke that leaves him severely limited in his mental and physical capacities. When Sarat drives to Gaines’ cabin, intent on killing him, she changes her mind upon seeing him: “She understood then why none of the remaining rebels had come out here to put a bullet in his head and stuff his mouth with the lining of his pockets. It would have been a kindness” (313).

Benjamin is the narrator of the novel, the son of Simon and Karina, and Sarat’s nephew. Born in 2089, Benjamin belongs to what’s commonly referred to as the Miraculous Generation, a term used to describe those who survived both the war and the subsequent plague. At the age of six, Benjamin meets his aunt Sarat shortly after her release from Sugarloaf, and the two bond. In her farewell letter to Benjamin, Sarat writes, “When I first came to your home, I was empty. I believed there was nothing good in the world. Then I met you, and I learned I was wrong. The time we spent in the river together made me remember what it was like to feel joy” (327).

Before releasing the virus, Sarat arranges for Benjamin to travel to New Anchorage in the neutral state of Alaska, far away from the war and the coming plague. As a teenager, Benjamin protests the influx of refugees from the Lower 48 attempting to escape the plague: "It made me feel good to do it, it made me feel rooted; their unbelonging was proof of my belonging" (327). Benjamin quickly abandons these Nativist leanings to become a history scholar specializing in the Second American Civil War.

In middle age, Benjamin uncovers Sarat's diaries and learns of her crimes, including the Reunification plague that killed 110 million Americans, along with his parents. Furious, Benjamin burns the pages, but as he reaches old age and begins to succumb to cancer, Benjamin is finally ready to share Sarat's story in the pages of this book.

Martina is Sarat's mother. At the start of the novel, she is 39 years old and described as an African-American woman. With no allegiance to the Southern cause, Martina simply wants what is best for her family. After the death of her husband and the encroachment of federal and Southern soldiers on her Louisiana home, Martina relocates her family to the Camp Patience refugee camp: "Many years later, in the tents of Camp Patience, Martina would silently curse the day she left her home and took her children willingly into the festering heart of the war-torn South" (46).

At Camp Patience, Martina writes letters to politicians and administrators on behalf of her fellow refugees. Still reeling from the death of her husband at the hands of a Rebel suicide bomber, Martina is appalled by her son Simon's decision to join a Southern militia. In 2081, Martina dies at the hands of Northern militiamen during the Camp Patience massacre.

Simon is Sarat's older brother by three years. As a teenager, eager for excitement and something to fight for, Simon joins the Virginia Cavaliers militia against his mother's adamant opposition. During the Camp Patience massacre, Simon suffers a near-fatal gunshot wound to the head that leaves him with significant mental impairment. For the first five years after the massacre, Simon has the intellectual capacity of a child. Sarat even comes to resent him for surviving: "Had he simply done what all the other men on the execution line had done, she would have forever known him as a martyr, not a marionette" (239).

As the years pass, Simon's mental faculties improve dramatically, although he still gets "clouded" sometimes. He marries his caretaker Karina and fathers a child, Benjamin. Karina tells Sarat, "The miracle isn't that he survived, the miracle is that he's healing" (289). Along with 110 million other Americans, Simon dies as a result of the Reunification plague.

Karina is Simon's caretaker and later his wife and mother to his son, Benjamin. A widow in her thirties from the Bangladeshi Isles, Karina has no loyalty toward the Southern cause but is fiercely protective toward Simon. She is among only a handful of characters who voices a balanced and frequently critical opinion of Sarat. In some ways, she is a proxy for the author himself, offering up an evaluation of Sarat that closely resembles his own: "She knew from the news and from townie gossip what the girls had been through. And because she knew, she understood. But that didn't mean she had to admire it" (180). Along with Simon, Karina dies as a result of the Reunification plague.

Dana is Sarat's fraternal twin sister, and while their bond is strong, the two could not be less alike. While Sarat is a tall and defiant tomboy, Dana enjoys makeup, dresses, and the attention of boys. At Camp Patience, she is described as "the prettiest little refugee girl anyone's even seen" (76). Dana survives the Camp Patience massacre by hiding in Gaines' office with Sarat. Later, she dates an unnamed reef pilot trainee from Augusta. On the way to meet him, Dana is the victim of a fatal Un-Oriented Drone strike. As she lays dying in an Augusta clinic, Dana tells Sarat, "Beautiful girl, I miss you already" (242).