the speaker's mother
The speaker's mother appears in Part 1 (p. 5) and Part 4 (p. 40) of Don't Let Me Be Lonely. In her first appearance, the speaker's mother has come home from the hospital after having a miscarriage: "When I was eight my mother became pregnant. She went to the hospital to give birth and returned without the baby" (5). This scene introduces the entire work of Don't Let Me Be Lonely. The speaker characterizes her mother as someone "who liked to shrug; deep within her was an everlasting shrug" (5). This scene with the mother introduces the motif of death which extends throughout the rest of the work.
In her second appearance, the speaker's mother is telling the speaker the hopes she has for her daughter's life: "She wants me to lead a readable life—one that can be read as worthwhile, and successful" (40). This scene with the speaker's mother works within the themes of loneliness and how one's life is valued by society. Because the speaker's mother feels like she has sacrificed for her children, she hopes that the speaker will be successful: "As far as she can remember, there was only pain connected to the joy of childbirth. She remembers the pain and wants it to have been worthwhile, for a reasonable life" (40).
the speaker's father
The speaker's father, like the speaker's mother, is also introduced on the first page of Don't Let Me Be Lonely. This is the only time he appears in the entire work. In this scene, the speaker witnesses his grief after his mother had died. The speaker did not know her grandmother on her father's side since the father had emigrated to the United States and the grandmother still lived back home. The father's grief makes the speaker uncomfortable, as she doesn't know how to react. He went back home to his mother's funeral and never discussed it again to the speaker.
In Part 17, the speaker's father dies, and though she is unable to attend the funeral, she advocates for cremation. The speaker sends flowers in her place and recommends that her father be cremated.
the speaker's friend with cancer
In Part 1, the speaker tells us of a friend of hers who died from breast cancer. It is the first scene in Don't Let Me Be Lonely where a person who is close to the speaker has died. We see her character in the way that she reveals to the speaker that she was diagnosed with cancer: "She says simply, I have breast cancer. Then in the incredulous tone she uses to refer to strange behavior by boyfriends and coworkers, she adds, Do you believe this? Can you believe this? Can you?" (8). The speaker's friend underwent a mastectomy but was later told that the cancer had spread to her bones. This is what eventually kills her.
the speaker's friend with Alzheimer's
In Part 2, the speaker introduces her friend that dies of Alzheimer's. She includes an image of a slate board in his house where he etched "This is the most miserable in my life" (17). At the beginning of his diagnosis, the friend knew that he was getting sick and that it would eventually kill him. He was taken to several homes. Five years later, he dies. Before he dies, he asks the speaker to put "the lady who deals with death" on the TV. It is only later when the speaker realizes he is asking for "Murder, She Wrote" (18).
the speaker's husband
The speaker's husband appears in Part 4 of Don't Let Me Be Lonely. When the speaker cannot sleep, she watches TV, which her husband sleeps through. She reveals that she never remembers falling asleep but that when she wakes up in the morning, the TV is always off. She wonders if it is her husband that turns off the TV.
In Part 18, the final section of Don't Let Me Be Lonely, the speaker mentions that she does not take note of her husband's expression when she tells him about a dream she has about darkness and a feeling of hopelessness. The speaker's husband interprets the dream for her, suggesting that it means that the speaker "think[s] voting won't make a difference" (127). Even though the speaker is not sure about this interpretation, her husband does not take the time to argue his point and is instead engrossed in the newspaper. He is concerned about the upcoming election and what will motivate voters to actually show up to the voting booths.
the suicidal girl
Part 5 of Don't Let Me Be Lonely tells the story of a girl who goes up to the roof of her building in an effort to escape the heat and is thought to be suicidal. When first responders come to the scene, they take her to the police station for questioning and then to the hospital. Her story adds to the theme of state-sanctioned authority doing more harm than good.
the speaker's close friend with depression
In Part 6, the speaker tells the story of a close friend of hers who is in "the depression of his life" (42). This friend's father had died in the hospital after telling his son that all of the worrying he did in his life was useless because it did nothing to help how the events of his life played out. This friend is so depressed that he takes medical leave from his job and does not leave his bed. The speaker reveals that she and her friend used to have DVD evenings before his depression began. Once he was unwell, he did not want to see anyone. The speaker called her friend with no answer until, finally, he agreed that she can go visit him. He chose Herzog's Fitzcarraldo as the movie he and the speaker would watch together and turns down the glass of wine the speaker pours for him because he is on Lithium. Lithium is an antidepressant that should not be mixed with alcohol. During the movie, the friend cries, even though there isn't anything particularly sad about it. The speaker decides that the friend "was not fine, not okay, no" (43).
the editor
In Part 8 of Don't Let Me Be Lonely, the speaker has a lunch meeting with her editor to discuss her new book on liver failure. At the beginning of their conversation, the editor tells the speaker that she was switched to the generic version of Prozac because her insurance will no longer cover the name brand. The editor asks the speaker to tell her what the liver means to her (54). They discuss Laurie Tarkan's article in the Times about liver failure. After the editor leaves, the speaker stays in the restaurant for an hour. The speaker knows that the editor is asking for "an explanation of the mysterious connections that exist between an author and her text" (54).
the speaker's sister
The speaker's sister is introduced in Part 9 and she appears again in Part 12. In Part 9, we see the speaker's sister's grief immediately following the death of her husband and her two children. Her family died in a car crash. The speaker's sister is mourning, deeply. The speaker tells us that even though "she is a psychiatrist, she cannot help herself" (61). The speaker cries with her sister in public spaces. She feels like her sister's depiction in this work feels insufficient: "The construct of my sister, this character, feels erased" (63). She wants to help her sister but she is incapable of doing anything but noting that three people that she has loved have died (63).
When the speaker's sister appears again in Part 12, she has been asked by an insurance adjuster to assess the value of her children's lives. The adjuster tells her to "think of it as a scrapbook" in order to compile "report cards, medical records, extracurricular activities" (77). The speaker and her sister discuss what to include as information about her children, realizing together that each activity corresponds to social value: "Each activity is a sign, a sign that points to social class, which points to potential worth" (78).
In Part 17, the speaker refers again to her sister, immediately following the revelation of her father's death. Her sister wakes in the middle of the night to find that she is completely soaked and she remembers that this is a side-effect of the medication that she is taking, Zoloft. She calls the speaker to tell her that this has happened. She takes a cold shower and learns about Saddam Hussein's death on the television.
the speaker's friend from college
The speaker's friend from college appears very briefly in Part 9 of Don't Let Me Be Lonely. This friend's "mother dies while she is on her way home from her father's funeral in Switzerland" (63). She is flying over the Atlantic when her mother has a heart attack in New Hampshire. The speaker encounters this friend in New York City at a cafe. The friend is wearing a fur coat that she inherited from her mother. The speaker notes that her friend "seems fine" following the death of both of her parents (63).
the speaker's friend who comes to visit
In Part 11, a friend of the speaker's drops by to visit at the moment that the speaker is putting on her coat. They go to a pizza shop, Sal's Pizzeria, a block away from her apartment building. The friend tells the speaker that she doesn't like a book that the speaker had recommended to her—Coetzee's Disgrace. The speaker then recommends Zadie Smith's White Teeth. Their conversation is mostly about Disgrace and ends with the friend asking "what woman hasn't been raped?" in response to the fact that the main character of Disgrace ignores a rape (72).
the nurse
While the speaker is on vacation in the Caribbean, she gets sick and is prescribed expired pills by the doctor. When she points this out to the nurse, the nurse asks if she has liver failure or is pregnant and then gives her back the pills.
Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani was the mayor of New York from 1994 to 2001. Giuliani, who served as mayor during 9/11, stated on that day that the "number of dead" was "more than we can bear" (81). In Part 13, the speaker states that this very comment is what renewed her opinion of the mayor. The speaker introduces Giuliani through a conversation two women on the bus are having on "whether Rudy Giuliani had to kneel before the Queen of England when he was knighted" (81). The speaker ties Giuliani's statement regarding loss to the concept of kneeling, recalling it to be "a moment that allowed his imagination's encounter with death to kneel under the weight of the real" (81).
Taxi Driver
The speaker encounters the taxi driver in Part 14 on her ride up the West Side Highway in Manhattan. He is from Pakistan and while driving asks the speaker "have you noticed these white people, they think they are better than everyone else?" (89). The speaker contemplates how the taxi driver's identity as a Pakistani immigrant shapes his experience in the United States after 9/11.
Mahalia Jackson
Mahalia Jackson was a famous American gospel singer who sang "Let There Be Peace on Earth" and appears in George Wein's documentary Louis Armstrong at Newport, 1971. The speaker refers to her "genius" in Part 15, stating "[h]er clarity of vision crosses thirty years to address intimately each of us" after viewing the documentary (97).
the speaker's friend who goes to the bathhouse
In Part 15 the speaker recounts a story in which her friend goes to a bathhouse and sees an identification number on the arm of a Holocaust survivor. The friend approaches the woman, mistaking the "A" at the start of the code as a marker of Auschwitz and sharing that her cousin was also held prisoner at this camp. The woman, Frieda Berger, corrects the speaker's friend saying that the "A" stands for arbeiter, worker.
the speaker's grandmother
The speaker describes visiting her grandmother in the nursing home in Part 16: "[h]ere I feel young, lucky, and sad" (108). Despite her doctor telling her to quit smoking, the speaker's grandmother is an adamant smoker. The speaker and her grandmother "sit outside in the sun during the dead of winter smoking cigarettes, chewing gum, and watching the cars go by" (109).
woman waiting for a cab
The speaker encounters a woman waiting for a cab in Part 17. Even though they are strangers, the woman tells the speaker "It's hard to live now" after the speaker laments at it being difficult to catch a cab at four o'clock (113).
President Mbeki
Though he was previously against it, President Mbeki, the leader of South Africa, appears in the news for vowing to provide antiretrovirals for the "five million South Africans infected by the HIV virus" (117). The country had a tenuous history with manufacturing a generic AIDS drug, and in Part 17, the speaker shares the relief she feels about Mbeki's change of opinion.
