Andrew Bankson

Andrew Bankson is one of the book’s central characters – more specifically, one side of the narrative’s central romantic triangle. He is portrayed as being in his late twenties / early thirties, deeply troubled as the story begins (he has just been pulled back from the brink of an attempted suicide), and desperate to find some kind of meaning in his life, either professional or personal. He finds both in the form of his relationships with Nell and Fen, but particularly with Nell: like both these other characters, Bankson (as he is referred to throughout the narrative) is an anthropologist.

Bankson is also the book’s primary narrator, meaning that the story, its events, and the meaning of those events are defined primarily from his perspective. That perspective has several elements, including his family circumstances (i.e. being the youngest child of a demanding father and complicated...