The People of Paper

Federico is the protagonist for much of the novel. His story unfolds initially in Mexico, where he lives what he perceives to be a happy life with his wife, Merced, and daughter, Little Merced. His primary characteristic in the early pages of the novel is that he wets the bed nightly. He believes that this is what causes his wife to abandon him, although he later learns that she left him for another man.

Federico, alone among the many characters in the novel, does not narrate his own story. Saturn, Little Merced, and Froggy, among others, report on his actions and feelings. What emerges is a character who is deeply troubled and saddened by what he experiences as the betrayal by his wife. The only way that Federico can cope with his sadness and remorse is by self-mutilation. He burns himself as self-medication against pain. He inscribes his inner pain on his body through these actions. Plascencia presents this as an addiction and something Federico does in secret.

In addition, Federico is a character who needs to find a reason for his own misfortune. His anger and sorrow are such that he chooses to wage war against Saturn and against omniscient narration. Although his life, his loss of his wife, and his ongoing sadness seem to parallel those of Saturn, he does not grow and remains a static, flat character throughout the book. Only at the end does he seem defeated when he is led away from El Monte by his daughter.

Little Merced is the daughter of Federico de la Fe and Merced. She is a resourceful, creative character. In the sections of the novel divided by columns, her narration takes the middle column, second only to Saturn. The position is an indication of her importance as a character, something she demonstrates in her naming of the paper woman, Merced de Papel. It also positions her as a mediator between her father and their new culture.

Little Merced has an acute understanding of her father’s addiction to pain, as she herself is addicted to limes. While this may seem to be a harmless addiction, the limes corrode her teeth and eventually poison her body. Like her father, her addiction is a form of self-medication, one that is ultimately deadly. The pain she feels comes from the absence of her mother as well as from her experience as an immigrant. In school, the white students shun her because she is poor and carries her lunch in a brown paper bag.

Ultimately Little Merced succumbs to her addiction to limes but is resurrected from the dead. While she never loses the stink of death, she demonstrates her devotion to and love of her father by leading him away from El Monte and off the pages of the novel.

Froggy serves the role of Federico de la Fe’s right-hand man in the war against Saturn. His headings are styled as “Froggy el Veterano,” or “Froggy the Veteran.” In several instances set in the future, he recalls the glory days of the war, something he never gives up on: “A martial longing and hope for the return of Federico de la Fe kept Froggy from removing the schematics that diagrammed the progression against Saturn” (43). As the historian of the EMF, Froggy shares the story of the war with the young members in the hope that Saturn will someday return.

Froggy also never recovers from his love for Sandra. After Froggy kills her abusive father, she leaves him and never returns to his bed. Although Froggy takes Julieta as a mate and remains faithful to her for the rest of the book, he never fully recovers from his lost love. In this, he serves as a parallel to Saturn and Federico. At the end of the novel, Froggy continues to mourn.

Smiley is a member of the EMF and serves as a counterweight to Froggy throughout the novel. His job in the EMF is accounting: “My job was to keep books for EMF, but when Federico de la Fe came I surrendered the job to Sandra so I might count things unseen” (87). His main job is to count lost time.

Unlike Froggy, Smiley has reservations about the war. He does not see Saturn as the enemy but rather as a protector. Eventually, he breaks through the sky and finds himself in Saturn’s home, where he learns of Saturn’s true identity. Of all the characters, Smiley seems the most well-rounded and developed.

Apolonio is a faith healer called a curandero who runs an herb and medicine shop in El Monte. He is the son of Antonio, who creates Merced de Papel in the Prologue. In his shop, Apolonio has many statues of saints, organized according to their power. Although the officially sanctioned saints hold the highest place on his shelves, Apolonia also has statues of many saints that are revered by the Indigenous and Latinx populations of El Monte.

The novel clearly demonstrates the high regard the characters hold for Apolonio. Not only does he attempt to cure their physical ills, but Apolonio also provides emotional, spiritual, and psychological support for the characters. They seek him out for advice. When Baby Nostradamus’s mother is dying, she designates Apolonio as the baby’s guardian and caretaker, a role he takes seriously. Despite his high status in the El Monte community, he is still vulnerable to charges of heresy from the Catholic Church and ends up losing his business and having to leave El Monte due to the intervention of the cardinal.

Liz is the love of Salvador’s life, although the merging of Saturn and Salvador makes it difficult to discern if someone named Liz is also the love of Plascencia’s life. She is a woman of Romani descent.

Liz does not appear in the first part of the book. It is only after Saturn has been identified as Salvador that she becomes an important part of the plot.

Although, at first, she continually reassures Saturn that she will not leave him, his continual questioning of her loyalty may play a role in her departure. She falls in love with another man and leaves El Monte to move in with him. Her departure can be compared to that of Merced. The novel itself is deeply affected by her absence. Although she remains quiet, allowing Saturn to tell her story, she finally speaks up, narrating an entire chapter of her own to defend the characterizations and accusations thrown at her by Saturn. She tells him he needs to leave her out of the story. She is appalled that he is willing to sell their intimate details for money.

Cameroon is Saturn’s lover after losing Liz. Her name suggests that she is of African descent and aligns her with the many enslaved people stolen from that African nation historically. She has an addiction to bee stings, and when questioned by Saturn why this is so, she replies that “when one is sad there is only insects or sex” (128). Years before meeting Saturn, she was abandoned by her father and suffered the trauma of sexual abuse. She is a sad character who cannot be comforted and cannot overcome her addiction. Ultimately, she leaves Saturn because he tells lies. She particularly objects to how he has fraudulently told Rita Hayworth’s story. Her last appearance in the book is with her beekeeper/pusher. Later, while in a bookstore, she browses through the pages of The People of Paper and discovers that Plascencia has killed her off by drowning, something that angers her.