The Sparrow

Anne meets Emilio while taking his class on the Latin language. Anne and Emilio immediately become intimate friends after she invites him to dinner one evening. Although Anne is married to George, it’s clear that she and Emilio are kindred spirits. Being 20 years older than Emilio, she teeters between viewing him as a son and being attracted to him. However, their relationship always remains strictly platonic, and Emilio often confides in Anne.

Anne is both an anthropologist and a physician, which is one of the reasons she is chosen for the Rakhat mission. Happily married to George, they are both retired and love hosting dinner parties. Anne is the life of the party, always witty and charming. She is openly agnostic regarding her belief in God, but there are moments on Rakhat when she begins to have genuine faith.

A retired engineer and lifelong runner, George is Anne’s husband; however, in his retirement, he has also become an avid gardener and space enthusiast. He is chosen for the Rakhat mission because of his engineering background, which he uses to keep the asteroid spacecraft in working condition.

While his wife is openly agnostic, George remains an atheist until the end. At times, George and Emilio openly disagree with each other, but similarly, they are both good with children despite not being fathers themselves.

Before leaving for the Rakhat mission, Jimmy Quinn, a 28-year-old astronomer, worked as a soundwave monitor for Arecibo, a Japanese company whose satellites monitor space for alien activity. Jimmy was the first to discover that a unique group of sound waves belonged to alien singers on a distant planet.

A tall man with an insatiable appetite, Jimmy towers above every other character. His parents were both Irish, and after moving to the United States, they sent Jimmy to a Jesuit school more for the rigor of the education than for the religion. As a result, Jimmy doesn’t seem to have an established sense of faith. While he philosophizes with Emilio regarding faith and religion, it’s never clear what Jimmy believes.

D.W., a former Marine turned Jesuit priest, is the man responsible for saving Emilio from his troubled youth and inspiring him to become a Jesuit priest. Described as exceptionally ugly, with crooked facial features and equally crooked teeth, D.W. is from Waco, Texas, and often talks with a heavy Texan accent.

Although his accent and anecdotes are playful and oftentimes comedic, D.W. is, at heart, a serious man who takes his job seriously. As a former Marine pilot, D.W. is chosen for the Rakhat mission because of his ability to fly and to lead in times of crisis. It’s clear that Emilio looks up to D.W. like a father.

When Emilio first meets Sofia, she is working as a vulture, a computer programmer who picks the brains of a worker in order to create a program that can do the job more efficiently. While working as a vulture, she focuses solely on the job at hand, never making time for personal or idle conversation.

Sofia first meets Emilio when she is hired by the Jesuit Order to create a computer program from Emilio’s expertise that will allow Jesuit missionaries to learn languages quickly and efficiently. During their first encounters, it’s clear that Emilio is attracted to Sofia, but she, unlike most women, seems to find him almost repulsive. She is initially revolted by the fact that Emilio is Catholic because her ancestors, the Sephardim, have a torrid past with the Catholics. However, once on Rakhat, this animosity quickly dissolves, and it becomes clear that Sofia loves Emilio, although she never acts on it. Instead, she marries Jimmy and gets pregnant with his child.

Sofia is described as petite, with beautiful big eyes, black hair, and a pale complexion. She is considered physically striking and attracts every man in the novel, but Anne initially describes her as an emotional anorexic because of her inability to share her thoughts and feelings with the people around her. However, after Sofia and Anne grow closer, Anne’s personality rubs off on Sofia, and she begins to open up more. During this time, Sofia begins to look at Anne like a mother.

Sofia is Jewish, although not practicing, and she and Emilio often debate what it means to have faith. She is from Istanbul, and after being orphaned at 13 years old, she became involved in commercial sexual exploitation as a child in order to survive. She was rescued from life on the streets by a Frenchman who agreed to pay her way through school if she would work for him until her debts were paid off. In this way, she was an indentured servant until an anonymous person paid off her debt. Emilio is sure that that person was Anne.

Marc is chosen for the Rakhat mission due to his master gardening and anthropologic skills. While on the asteroid, he tends a garden and aquarium that feeds the crew, and once on Rakhat, he is responsible for surveying the land, diagnosing which plants are edible, and planting the gardens. He is described as being incredibly handsome and studious, and it’s revealed that early on in his priesthood, he had trouble with celibacy due to his weakness for women. His faith revolves around the idea that God is all around him in nature, and he keeps his faith until the end.

John is hired by the Father General to be Emilio’s caretaker and to get him to open up about his experiences on Rakhat. Despite what everyone says about Emilio, John gives him the benefit of the doubt and befriends him. In fact, John becomes one of Emilio’s only friends. While the other priests are concerned about getting the truth out of Emilio for the sake of the Jesuit Order’s reputation, John genuinely cares about Emilio’s well-being, and his soul. Although Emilio doesn’t open up to John until the end of the novel, John stays consistently by his side, offering him advice, medicine, and helping with his physical therapy.

Edward is Emilio’s only other friend. While John takes care of Emilio’s soul, Edward takes care of Emilio’s body, nursing him through his vomiting spells, night terrors, and debilitating migraines. Edward is described as pudgy and out of shape but with a big heart. He became a Jesuit priest later in life after his wife died in a tragic car accident. It’s later revealed that Edward was the one driving the car. This becomes a point of connection between Edward and Emilio because both men had innocent people die from their mistakes. Both men also wrestle with the question of whether to blame themselves for the tragedy or God.

The head of the Jesuit Order, Vincenzo has made it his personal mission to help Emilio recover and get him to talk. While his original intention is to get Emilio to confess, thus clearing the Jesuit Order name, he eventually grows to care deeply about Emilio’s soul. By the end of the novel, Vincenzo’s desire is to see Emilio become whole again.

Vincenzo, although technically younger than Emilio, looks much older because of the effects of time travel on Emilio. He comes from a wealthy family, but it’s revealed that that money is the result of his family’s involvement in organized crime. The sins of his family are what propelled him to become a priest, as a sort of penance for what his family had done. He says his family basically owns Naples, which is why Emilio has been able to remain in secrecy in the city.

Johannes is Vincenzo’s secretary. He initially has great disdain for Emilio because he believes the things he has heard about him, namely, that he was a sex worker and child murderer while on Rakhat. However, by the end of the novel, after hearing Emilio’s confession, he develops a clear sympathy for him.

A five-year-old Runa girl, Askama is the first creature to approach Emilio after the humans’ arrival on Rakhat. Askama immediately attempts to talk to Emilio, and it’s revealed that Runa children are trained from an early age to be traders, thus having an uncanny ability to learn a multitude of new languages quickly. Askama and Emilio quickly bond, and Emilio learns much of the Runa language from her.