Nathaniel

Nathaniel is the book’s narrator and one of its central characters. Nathaniel narrates the events of the book in the past tense as he exposits upon his life and the lives of others. In 1945, Nathaniel was 14 years old and living in London. His parents had both left the country, and he and his sister Rachel were being raised by a family friend, Walter, whom Nathaniel and Rachel called The Moth. In this environment, Nathaniel gradually entered adulthood with a general lack of supervision. He formed a romantic and sexual relationship with a young woman he met at the restaurant where they both worked. He also did some work for The Moth’s friend, known as The Darter, who smuggled racing dogs illegally into London.

In his late twenties, Nathaniel acquired a job working in the British government’s classified archives. There, he was employed in redacting and...