Jane Takagi-Little
Jane Takagi-Little is one of the protagonists of the novel as well a means for the author to compare and contrast Western culture. She is of mixed ethnicity, the daughter of a Japanese woman and an American father. Even her upbringing is bilateral as she spent her youth in Minnesota but moved to Japan as an adult to study the works of Shonagon, a famous Japanese writer. Living Japan, she met and eventually married an African scholar. They were happily married for the most part until frustrations started to mount because she began to have difficulty getting pregnant; eventually they divorced and Jane moved back to the United States to return to journalism. While in New York she struggles to find employment and when a Japanese friend of hers offers her work as a producer of a Japanese cooking-reality show featuring American housewives cooking beef dishes to promote the use of imported beef, she willingly accepts the task.
Ueno Akiko
Another one of the protagonists of the novel who she serves as a counterfoil for the more outspoken Jane, she is the timid, emaciated, bulimic Japanese wife of one the executives that conceptualized “My American Wife!” She lives in Japan where she was a former mangaka who authored horror comics. She is thin and so malnourished that her periods have stopped altogether. She is unable to conceive because of her amenorrhea, a fact that infuriates her controlling husband. Her husband believes that perhaps if she ate more meat that she’d end up looking more like the full-figured, robust Texas women that he has grown so enamored of. In order to please her husband Akiko watches “My American Wife!” every week, trying desperately to cook and consume the dishes that are featured. Over time however, her sense of self and identity grows. She eventually leaves her husband to seek out Jane and a life of her own.
Suzie Flowers
Suzie Flowers is selected to be the initial “American Wife” because she’s pretty and cooks well. Although outwardly beautiful and perky, all of it is a mere façade, because on the inside she is an emotional wreck and her personal life is a mess. Her flaws are on display for all to see on the opening shoot of her episode: the producers make hurtful, insensitive remarks about the freckles on her skin and mock her recipe’s lack of refinement; to make matters worse Suzie’s husband becomes frustrated during the interview and admits to having an affair with a waitress, proving the shows inability to inspire and empower women. The revelation all but breaks Suzie’s spirit but Jane bravely apologizes to her for how the filming had adversely affected her.
Ueno Joichi “John”
The closest thing the novel has for a villain, Joichi is Akiko’s abusive, deeply misogynistic, and emotionally distant husband. Despite all this, he himself is caught between a proverbial “rock and a hard place” as he in under great duress trying to keep up with the constant and mercurial demands of his American bosses and the exceedingly restrictive and conformity-based Japanese corporate culture. The matter is further complicated by the presence of two highly revolutionary women in his life. He feels trapped and he often turns to the drink to sort out the emotions---which he spends a great deal of time repressing; he handles liquor very poorly and often uses drunkenness as a license to act on his baser emotions.
Sloan
The mysterious saxophone player and Jane’s volatile love interest is the author’s means by which she critiques the mercurial and often confusing parameters of the so-called “modern” romantic relationship. Initially Jane keeps him at arm’s distance but as their relationship grows and deepens she begins to want Sloan to have a bigger involvement in her life.
Alberto and Catalina Martinez
A migrant family who Jane features on the show as an attempt to be more inclusive to other ethnicities within the US, the Martinez’s emigrated to Texas so that their son could be born an American citizen and have access to good education and opportunities they never had in their home country.
Vern and Grace Beaudroux
Another family that Jane meets at the annual hog festival in Askew, Louisiana, and another one of her more successful attempts at featuring non-traditional families, Vern is a chef and Grace is a mother of twelve kid--ten of the twelve are Korean children that they’ve adopted. Joichi particularly resents Jane for featuring the Beaudrouxs as it is the husband that does the cooking rather than the wife.
Christina Bukowsky
Christina is an exceedingly beautiful, young paraplegic whom Jane features in Quarry, Indiana. Her legs were crushed in an accident involving a container truck. Despite her condition though her spirit and zest for life remains unsullied making her all the more lovely. Jane’s film crew is smitten with her.
Lara and Dyann
Lara and Dyann are a lesbian couple living with their children in Massachusetts; ironically, the pair also happens to be vegetarians--making them the most incongruous contenders for concept of “My American Wife!” Featuring the couple however produces to be the most authentic, most heartfelt, episode that Jane had produced. It is the warmth and authenticity of their relationship inspires Akiko to leave Joichi and seek out her own happiness.
Bunny
A former stripper and rodeo queen, she is the wife of the owner of Dunn & Son, Custom Cattle Feeders, a farm affiliated with Beef-Ex. She is full-figured and charming in her own brusque, decidedly Western manner.
John
Bunny’s elderly husband, who proposed to Bunny during a lap dance; is clearly smitten with his young, vivacious wife.
Gale
John’s “pale, flaccid” son from a previous marriage. He isn't too fond of the boy and speaks disparagingly about him.
Rose
John and Bunny’s five-year-old daughter who is the most badly affected by the synthetic hormones they use for the cattle. She has been so poisoned by growth hormones that at a mere five years old her body has matured into that of a grown woman.
