The Leavers

“Short and blocky” (4), blunt and loud, Peilan Guo is the adventurous, ambitious daughter of a fisherman who raises her after her mother dies of cancer when Peilan is an infant. Peilan’s life is defined by the conflict between her desire for companionship with her longing for adventure. Peilan grows up daring and longing to travel further than her village. She acquires the opportunity to do so through going to Fuzhou to work at a factory, but her dreams are derailed by her pregnancy, itself caused by her attempt to ease her loneliness with a village boy. To escape the limited options presented to her, Peilan chooses to travel to the US, taking on the name of “Polly.”

Polly’s relationships with the men in her life are characterized by this back and forth of loneliness and limitation with adventure. While Peilan, now Polly, at first only sees motherhood as a limitation, she tries to see it as a an adventure and a cure for “the sharp edges of [her] loneliness that bubbled up when [she] saw couples and families and people laughing with friends” (143). Her romantic relationships with Leon and Yong Lin are similar: both offer her companionship but also make her feel trapped and restless. With Leon, Polly feels trapped in her financial circumstances. With Yong, Polly feels trapped in her social circumstances. Her departure from Deming and Leon, by extension, is traumatic and against her will. However, her departure from her husband Yong is an act of bravery and a recovery of herself. By leaving, she “had found her: Polly Guo. Wherever I went next, I would never let her go again” (326).

An immigrant from a village similar to Polly’s, Leon is Polly’s boyfriend and takes up the role of Deming’s father. He works at a slaughterhouse at night for little pay and is described as physically strong, but gentle and kind. He takes care of his sister Vivian and her child, Michael, and stays with Polly, even after he learns about Deming. While Polly cares for him, she sees him as complacent with his lot, regardless of its precarity, and comfortable with receiving deference from Polly and Vivian. Deming sees him as cowardly for leaving when the financial situation worsens after Polly is detained. Leon cares for Polly enough to look for her and offer to stay with her when he finds her in China, but he has his own wife and child. Leon demonstrates his care for Daniel when he hosts him in Fuzhou and helps him find Polly again.   

The oldest of Leon’s siblings, Vivian was the first to come to the U.S. She was left with Michael by her former husband and lives with Leon and Polly. She contributes to the household by sowing and housecleaning. Polly describes her as “short and round” (193) and deferential to Leon, cooking for him even when she had come from work and expecting Polly to do the same. Leon mentions that “inside she is a soft woman” (195). Vivian cannot support both her son and Deming, so she gives Deming up for adoption after Leon leaves. She shows her guilt by paying off Polly’s debt and reaches out to Deming through Michael, telling him about Leon and his mother. She will marry an accountant and move to Brooklyn. 

Vivian’s son through a broken marriage, Michael is Deming’s age but is studious and more well-behaved. They grow up as brothers living together since they are the same age. Michael remembers Deming and his mother even years later and contacts Deming about information he found. As a child, Polly finds him “shaped like a bobble-headed toy” (196). Michael recalls admiring Deming in their youth and continues to admire Daniel as adults when they first meet. Years later, Daniel describes Michael as “lanky” (31) with a long face. Michael eventually studies at Columbia University and moves in with Daniel.

Daniel’s closest friend and bandmate at Ridgeborough, Roland is the son of a white mother and a Hispanic father who died when he was a child. He is short and compact with a pointy face, a deep voice, and “manic energy” (17). Like Daniel, Roland was treated as an outcast at Ridgeborough, but Daniel sees Roland as using his outsider status to his advantage. Unlike Daniel, Roland is confident and does not feel a necessity to uncover his roots. Roland invites Daniel to stay at his place and play together again like they did in Ridgeborough after Daniel is expelled from college. Although Daniel enjoys Roland’s company, he doesn’t feel Roland’s music is authentic. Tension between them leads Roland to drop him from his band. By the end of the novel, they reconcile but no longer play together.

An economics professor at Carlough College, Peter first fosters Daniel and then him and his wife, Kay, adopt him along. He is a remote and strict figure for Daniel, although he introduces and bonds with Daniel over his old records. As a child, Daniel saw him as having a “reedy, gently nasal” voice, blue eyes, and “floppy” blond hair (46). Throughout Michael’s first years at Ridgeborough, Peter vies for the position of chair for his department and loses it to a colleague, eventually attaining it when his colleague retires. Along with Kay, he disapproves of Daniel’s move to New York and insists he finish college.

A professor of political science at Carlough College, Kay is closer to Daniel than Peter. It is Kay that Daniel will reach out to when he feels their relationship is strained. When they first met, Daniel saw her as having “short blonde hair with chunks of brown” (46). Kay is more forthcoming to Peter and Daniel himself about her struggles and uncertainties as a mother. Like Peter, she has difficulty understanding Daniel’s background. 

An underconfident business man who owns a textile factory and feigns not to put effort into his success, he meets Polly while learning English. He will eventually marry her and offer her economic stability. He is older than Leon, has a gravelly, soft voice, and lost his first wife to leukemia. Polly sees him as “handsome in a semi ruined way” (115). He shows himself supportive of Polly when she confesses Deming’s existence to him and later directs Deming to her. Deming will stay with them both during his time in Fuzhou.

The adoptive Chinese daughter of Jim and Elaine Hennings, Angel is described as petite. She was brought to live with them from China as an infant and never learned Chinese. She and Daniel become good friends, bonding over how they feel they disappoint their adoptive parents. Daniel describes her as a genuine person who doesn’t pretend to know more than she does. She will eventually go study in the Midwest and work to earn enough money to spend a year abroad in Tibet. Daniel will borrow that money from her and be unable to pay her back, dashing her dreams. 

Polly’s father (called “Yi Ba” by her, “Yi Gong” by Deming) is a Minjiang fisherman who loses his wife to cancer when Polly is 6 months old. He will raise Polly by himself, through hardship, and care for Deming from when he is a year old to when he is 6 years old. His expectations of women will frame how Polly sees herself as a rule breaker. He thinks women should be silent and that they bring problems onto themselves. 

Haifeng’s mother, Ms. Li, disapproves of Polly’s relationship with Haifeng. She and Polly’s father frequently interact. Ms. Li is the one who tells Polly of her father’s passing. She is also opportunistic, taking the house that belonged to Polly’s father and paying her a cheap price for it.

Haifeng is a village boy that Polly sees out of loneliness. Unambitious, and thought “soft” (125) by Polly’s father, Haifeng is sent to work in Fuzhou for a time and meets up with Polly. She becomes pregnant from their meeting but is uninterested in marrying him. Deming has no relationship with him.

Angel’s adoptive father, Jim, was Peter’s old roommate in college and continues to be a close friend of his. Daniel sees him as having a loud voice and a receding hairline. Angel’s adoptive mother, Elaine, has dark wavy hair streaked with white with a round and velvety voice.