Jim
Jim is the first-person narrator of the story, husband of Kyra, adoptive father to Mika and a hard worker somehow managing double shifts at Whole Foods. He considers the marriage to be better than most because it is more communicative than most. They adopted Mika three years previously, choosing a Chinese baby in response to the thousand of orphans created by a devastating earthquake. It was because of his relative ignorance of all other things having to with China that they bought into the idea of buying Yang.
Kyra
Kyra is wife to Jim, an equally hard worker at Crate and Barrel, and also equally resistant to the concept of cloning as her husband. A clone could have been an easy answer to taking care of a new young child from a foreign land. And so she is equally adaptable to making the investment in Yang.
George
George is literally the guy next door, but the differences between neighbors is vast and telling. George has two kids and expresses no concern at all about them being clones. He is also the type of guy who drives a hybrid vehicle with a bumper sticker announcing his opposition to solar power. He is also one of those types who actually paints his in the colors of the team he wants to win the Super Bowl. When Yang seems to be malfunctioning, it is George who suggests a friend in Kalamazoo for repairs.
Russ Goodman
Russ Goodman is, coincidentally enough, the owner of Russ Goodman’s Tech Repair Shop. What are the odds of that happening, right? He is the type of fella who when he instantly declares Yang to be Korean and is told he is Chinese responds by saying it’s the same thing. Jim declares Russ to be the sort of person he has made a habit of avoiding whenever possible.
Yang
And, of course, the star of the show. Yang is the android that Jim and Kyra purchase in preference to going the clone route to help take care of their new Chinese baby. And it’s great! Yang came programmed with a standard college education as well as possessing comprehensive knowledge of Chinese culture. He can also read bedtime stories, eat food and brush his teeth and—best of all—dump his own stomach canister. What he can’t do is create the sense of camaraderie Jim seeks when taking him to baseball games or when watching movies. Which is still okay and everything, but then comes the day when Yang’s head falls face-first into his bowl of Cheerios and Jim learns that the warranty lapse and he can’t get a replacement and Russ Goodman tells him Yang is dead.
