Mel

Dr. Melisande Stokes is a linguist who teaches at Harvard before joining DODO. Like most of the other characters in the novel, Mel appears to exist in a vacuum, with no significant relationships outside of DODO over the novel’s five-year span. Her family is mentioned once, and then only to explain her facility with languages: as a young child, Mel learned Latin to appease her Catholic grandparents and Hebrew for her Jewish ones. Her Jewish grandparents offered to fund a semester of university for each new fluent language learned. Otherwise, Mel’s narrative never mentions any friends or family.

Mel’s most significant relationship is with Tristan, to whom she is attracted from their first meeting. She admits that she allows Tristan to push her beyond her comfort zone, even into dangerous situations, because she is “so keen to please” him (99). She suppresses her feelings despite their...