What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

Lucy is an eccentric and beautiful artist who features in “Books and Roses.” She lives at La Pedrera, where she meets Montserrat. She was a grifter in her younger days and would defraud people out of jewelry and valuables to make money. Through that activity, she formed a bond with a woman named Safiye, and the two became lovers. Lucy wears a key that Safiye gave her around her neck, which becomes a point of commonality with Montserrat, who has also spent years waiting for the person who left her a key. Coincidentally, both of their keys lead to the same mansion.

Lucy is the object of Montserrat’s affection, as she has been the object of affection for many throughout her life. Her beauty attracts others, but her eccentricities make her interesting. She is known for quirks such as drinking coffee out of vases and lying about being 50 despite only being 35. Lucy’s love for Safiye is passionate and steadfast; it is all she has thought about for 10 years. She doesn’t explicitly consider Montserrat romantically, but she may be the person fate has sent Lucy. After all, in her search for her lost love, she finds Montserrat.

Chedorlaomer, or “Ched,” is an Iranian singer-songwriter living in England. He hears voices from whom he gets his musical voice. Ched is popular and good-looking but has a difficult time dating. He owns the House of Locks in Ipswich, Suffolk, which is a house where no doors stay shut unless they’re locked.

Chedorlaomer is never the protagonist of a story, but he appears as a character in “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea” and again in “Freddy Barrandov Checks…In?” In his first appearance, Ched’s friend Anton worries about his love life and considers introducing him to Tyche, believing that she would be a good fit. By his second appearance, his relationship with Tyche is in full swing, much to the chagrin of his father, Jean-Claude, who hires Freddy to break them up.

Ched’s relationship with Tyche is one of passion and respect. He considers her his first love and is so attached to her that the two of them go everywhere together. This contrasts with his earlier trouble forming close relationships with women. Ched likely first meets Tyche by calling his own house and hearing her voice on the phone, as this “phone woman” sparks his interest. Tyche is also a seemingly magical figure—she often appears to those who need her—so she might have found her way to Ched on her own. 

Anton is the point-of-view character of “‘Sorry’ Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea.” He is a gay man living with his boyfriend (Noor) and Noor’s two daughters (Aisha and Dayang) when he is tasked with taking care of his friend Chedorlaomer’s house, which is made entirely of locks. He is also navigating parenthood, as Aisha experiences profound disappointment when her favorite pop idol’s assault on a woman is brought to public knowledge. Anton spends much of his time at the House of Locks, both as a favor to his friend and as a way to escape what has become an uncomfortable and constant conversation in his home life. The House of Locks, which symbolizes Ched’s desire to close himself off from the world, becomes a way for Anton to self-isolate as well.

Anton befriends Tyche, who helps Aisha get the accountability that she was seeking. Anton serves as a bridge between the characters in this story, connecting Tyche to Ched and to his stepdaughter.

Noor is the father of Aisha and Dayang and also the boyfriend of Anton. Noor appears in “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea,” in which Aisha struggles to cope with the shattered image of her favorite pop idol. Aisha’s strong reaction leaves Noor worried that her image of him has shattered as well. Noor’s worries reflect the concerns that all parents have as their children grow up—namely, that they will no longer see them as superhuman heroes. He struggles to find the right things to say, worrying that Aisha and Dayang will find his response insufficient.

Aisha first appears in “‘Sorry’ Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea” and later features in “Freddy Barrandov Checks...In?” In the first, she is a happy teenager who is disturbed when a pop star she admires assaults a woman without a permanent home. Aisha becomes increasingly disturbed by his lack of remorse and seeks to force him to apologize and face consequences for what he’s done. She goes as far as to steal Anton’s wallet and bid 10,000 pounds on a private concert so she can look into his eyes and see for herself whether he is remorseful. With Tyche as her guide, she learns how to use spiritualism as her weapon.

When she returns in “Freddy […],” Aisha is older and in a romantic relationship with the titular Freddy. She has grown a lot from her time as an obsessive teenager and has found a new passion for artistic filmmaking.

Dayang is the daughter of Noor and the stepdaughter of Anton. She appears in “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea” and again in “A Brief History of the Homely Wench Society.” In the former, Dayang is a teenager. As the older sister of Aisha, Dayang supports her while she comes to terms with losing her idealized image of her favorite singer, Matyas Füst.

Dayang is the protagonist of “A Brief History of the Homely Wench Society.” Now a university student, she is invited to join the titular society, which is a women’s society that was formed to oppose the sexist Bettencourt Society. She thus finds herself in a Romeo-and-Juliet scenario with a young man named Hercules Demetriou, who is a member of the Bettencourt Society. Dayang is a smart, capable young woman who joins the feminist Homely Wench Society because of their stance that women have value outside of their looks. She has surrounded herself with friends who have different gender identities and unique forms of expression. When she meets Hercules, she assumes that he and the other Bettencourters are shallow misogynists. However, when he defies the negative expectation she has of him, she and the other Homely Wenches question their original beliefs.

Tyche is a woman who appears in many of the stories in the book. She is described as oddly beautiful and dark-skinned, with a constellation on her wrist that variously appears to be a tattoo or a birthmark. She appears in “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea” as a coworker of Anton who helps his stepdaughter Aisha teach Matyas Füst a lesson. In “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” she is a puppetry student training under Myrna Semyonova. Lastly, she appears in “Freddy Barrandov Checks…In?” as Chedorlaomer’s girlfriend and an actress in Aisha’s short film.

Tyche has an air of mystery that draws other characters in. She is never the protagonist of any story she appears in, so the reader never has a full picture of who she is. Often, she exists as a supportive character, offering friendship or guidance to the protagonist.

Tyche is named for the Greek goddess of fate, chance, and fortune. The goddess Tyche is often considered one of the Moirai, or the Fates, and Tyche often appears when there is a question of a character’s fate. She influences Matyas to express genuine remorse for his actions in “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea.” Similarly, she is the reason for Freddy finally working at the Glissando as his family wanted and everyone expected. She is also the reason that Radha ends up paired with Gustav as her puppetry mentor, which was exactly where Radha needed to be to hone her gift. While there are only glimpses of who Tyche is, when she appears in a story, she doesn’t do so without leaving her mark.

Myrna makes her first appearance in “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” as the daughter of a famous puppeteer; she later studies at the college where he serves as the head of school and teaches puppetry as well. She is the object of protagonist Radha’s affection and one of her puppetry mentors. Myrna has the ability to remove the pain from others with a touch, but she cannot feel human touch herself. Because of her ability, she has learned to keep her distance from people, believing that they might try to use her. Myrna also has a different approach to the art of puppetry than Radha. Though she too seems to speak the language of the puppets, her performances are more by the book than Radha’s and Gustav’s intuitive interactions with their puppets. She chooses to work with Tyche over Radha, possibly because Radha didn’t follow Myrna’s instructions during her audition.

Myrna is mentioned alongside Radha in “Presence” as tenants living in the apartment that Jill owns. It is implied that Myrna and Radha have entered into a romantic relationship with one another, which “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” foreshadowed. She appears again in “A Brief History of the Homely Wench Society” as the author of a book called Sob Story, which she wrote under a pen name to make her girlfriend laugh.

Radha is a puppeteer appearing in “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” and mentioned again in “Presence” and “Freddy Barrandov Checks…In?” Radha narrates the first half of “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” as if she were telling the story to Myrna. Radha trains to become a puppeteer because of her crush on Myrna, but her ability to communicate with the puppets suggests that puppetry has always been her true calling. It is implied that Radha’s ability has something to do with youth or innocence and that she will eventually lose it, but she never does. Radha is attracted to both men and women and has a close relationship with Gustav before becoming romantically involved with Myrna.

Radha is the only person who can communicate with Gepetta, the living puppet—or at least she is the only person who has tried to hear her. Radha’s ability, which Gustav recognizes, seems to come from a willingness to see people (and puppets) completely. She approaches Rowan as well, whom everyone else at the school avoids. The story asks where the line is between the living and the inanimate, between the living and the dead. Radha sees beyond that line and into the grey areas, which is why she can communicate with both the ghost in her room and with the puppets. In “Presence,” she is mentioned as the tenant of Jill Akkerman; she lives in Jill’s old flat with Myrna. In “Freddy Barrandov Checks…In?” she is a well-known puppeteer who is friends with Tyche Shaw.

Rowan is a living puppet made out of rowan wood by the alchemist Rowan Wayland. “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” refers to Rowan with both he/him and she/her pronouns; Rowan appears as different genders to different people, depending on whom they find attractive. A young Myrna found Rowan guarding the empty grave of the alchemist, and Rowan followed her home after she dropped her keys near the grave; Myrna sees Rowan as female.

Rowan has a striking appearance, with blue, yarn-like hair and two small horns coming out of their head. Rowan appears humanlike at first glance, which unnerves people. Rowan can also move independently, which is unusual for puppets. They become friends with Gepetta after meeting in Radha’s history of puppetry class. Like Gepetta, Rowan is a living puppet, but unlike her, Rowan has never actually been human. Most of the people in the puppetry school do not understand—and seek to avoid—Rowan. Though Rowan also prefers solitude, they have a keen eye for the goings-on among the students. As a living puppet, Rowan has a much longer life span than the humans and has only agreed to stay near Myrna because she will (by Rowan’s timeline) soon die. Rowan plans to eventually return to their post at the grave.

Gepetta is a living puppet who used to be a human woman; she appears in the story “Is Your Blood as Red as This?” Gepetta’s name is a reference to Geppetto, the puppeteer who builds Pinocchio to be his son out of loneliness in the fairy tale. As a human, Gepetta cared for the puppets and taught puppetry to her own apprentices. She fell ill during a plague, and as she lay dying, the puppets that she cared for slowly replaced her body parts with puppet parts until she was all puppet. Gepetta cannot speak herself, but she has discovered how to speak through Radha, who is the first person who was able to communicate with her.

Gepetta forms a bond with Rowan, another living puppet. Rowan, who was a puppet from the start, has become more humanlike, which inverts Gepetta’s trajectory. Gepetta is an insightful character and narrates the second part of “Is Your Blood as Red as This?,” observing the characters from her quiet vantage point as a puppet.

Arkady is the protagonist of “Drownings.” He is a poor young man who finds himself in opposition to the tyrant who rules over his country. The tyrant drowned Arkady’s parents when he was young, leaving him destitute and struggling to care for himself and his found family, Giacomo and Leporello. He works an extra job cleaning up for Lokum, the physician to the tyrant, and allows her to test her medicines on him. He develops an attraction to her, and she fires him for his own safety.

Arkady’s poverty puts him in a desperate position and ultimately allows him to be blamed for a crime that he has no knowledge of committing. His moral compass works against him, as under coercion he comes to accept (and confess) that he burned down his old building. He also exhibits bravery when faced with the tyrant’s wrath. Arkady is an everyman character, representing the condition of the impoverished and disenfranchised, who often become victims of the system. He is a man who has worked honest jobs his entire life and whose life and family are put at risk because he has no way to defend himself against false allegations. In the end, his honesty prevents him from simply leaving the prison, as he is unsure whether or not he bears any responsibility for the victims of the building fire.

Giacomo is the adoptive younger brother of Arkady. He is naïve and innocent, which is why Arkady feels the need to look after him. Giacomo accidentally discovers that their apartment key opens every door in their building, and he becomes attached to the view that he finds in another apartment. Giacomo is also the one who finds Leporello, the dog that ends up becoming the third member of their found family.

Despite Giacomo’s apparent incompetence, he is often a voice of reason, offering surprisingly apt answers to Arkady’s questions and worries. When Arkady questions whether or not the fiery deaths at their old building were his fault, Giacomo posits that the people died only because they could not get out. His innocence is perhaps also the reason he understands how the key works before anyone else does.

Jill is a psychologist who is helping her husband, Jacob, develop an augmented reality means of communicating with loved ones who have passed on. She appears in “Presence.”

Jill and Jacob both grew up in foster care, and they bonded through their experiences in the system even before each of them got adopted. However, Jill now fears that Jacob is cheating on her with his coworker Vi, whom she meets through the Presence project. Inside of the Presence reality, Jill becomes disoriented, unable to distinguish reality from the fake world created by the technology. She even meets her “son,” a boy called Alex who grows up before her eyes. It is ultimately unclear whether or not Jill is actually alive. She and Jacob agree in the end that the technology isn’t safe enough for anyone else to try.

Dornička is an older woman who encounters a wolf on a mountain while wearing a red cloak; she convinces the wolf not to go after any people by promising to send him something young and tender to eat. Dornička is still dealing with the death of her husband and seems to have few family ties other than her goddaughter (Alžběta) and Alžběta’s daughter (Klaudie).

Dornička combines the Little Red Riding Hood archetype with the grandmother from the same tale. When the wolf first encounters her, he says that he thought she was “her,” referring to the little girl from the fairy tale. The reason he mistook her for the little girl is because she is the little girl, but grown up and without the naïvety of the child in the story. As the once innocent girl grows up, she develops an instinct to protect people from the kinds of predators who preyed on her before she knew better.

Dornička grows a lump on her hip after the wolf strikes her. She likens the lump to being pregnant and is so disgusted by it that she cuts it off of herself. The lump represents the innocent part of her that the “wolf” seeks to consume. Ultimately, Dornička feeds the lump to the goose to sacrifice her to the “wolf,” saving some other young, innocent soul from being consumed by the monster in disguise.

Klaudie is the young grand-goddaughter of Dornička—i.e., the daughter of Dornička’s goddaughter, Alžběta. Klaudie is 19 and travels with her mother to stay with Dornička during the fall holiday season. She is attracted to the smell of the lump that Dornička has cut from her own hip, claiming that it smells yeasty and sweet. As something put on Dornička’s hip by the “wolf,” the sweet smell that attracted Klaudie could have possibly been used to attract someone who was still young and innocent. Her ravenous interest in the lump also suggests desire, which could represent a sexual awakening. The way her interest in the lump unnerves Dornička is similar to the way many parental figures feel when witnessing their children experiencing sexual feelings for the first time.

Klaudie’s bond with the goose Dornička sacrifices also represents her innocence. Her affection for an animal that was purchased to slaughter reveals her good and innocent heart. Furthermore, the goose is as innocent and naïve as Klaudie is, completely unaware of the danger that awaits it as the holiday approaches. That is also why they both can smell the sweet smell of the lump, while Alžběta and Dornička, both already hardened by the world, do not notice any scent.

Freddy, the protagonist of “Freddy Barrandov Checks…In?,” is a nursery-school teacher, which is a big point of contention for his family. His father, Frederick Barrandov Sr., is known for his skill as a maintenance man at the Hotel Glissando, and Freddy has been expected to follow in his father’s footsteps his entire life. His mother and sister (Odette) have also devoted their lives to working at the hotel. Freddy is the only person in his family with no interest in working there. He is in a relationship with a now grown-up Aisha. Aisha’s short film connects Freddy to Chedorlaomer, also a returning character from “‘Sorry’ Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea,” who voices one of the characters. Freddy is offered a lot of money from his godfather, Jean Claude, to break up Ched and Tyche Shaw, and the intensity of Ched and Tyche’s relationship exacerbates Freddy’s fears about his relationship with Aisha.

“If A Book Is Locked […]” uses a second-person perspective to minimize the psychological distance between the reader and the protagonist of the story. In the story, “you” work at an office in the UK, looking over productivity data from other companies to help them decide which employees to let go. It’s not a job “you” like, but at work, “you” meet a new employee from the US named Eva. She fascinates the entire office, including “you,” and “you” try to befriend her. “You” become more curious about Eva after the office turns on her, and “you” see that she has a leather-bound diary. “You” are largely an observer of Eva’s story, just like a reader of a book. Much like the reader of the stories in this book, “you” open the diary and are flooded with stories.