Characters
Here's a quick run-down of some of the characters I work with as a fiction
writer. My creative process may seem schizophrenic to those who don't have
a similar one, but in short, I think each and every one of these characters
"lives", in a sense, independent of my own thought process, and I'm just
here to write their stories as those stories become apparent to me.
THE GEORGIOU-WEST FAMILY
PETER ASHLEY WEST: (b. 4 August 1958) Peter is the great grandson of
Angelica Perrey-Georgiou. He has OCA1a-type albinism, resulting in white-blond
hair, icy violet eyes, and the fairest possible complexion. He was born in
Venice Beach, California, to the mentally unstable Jayne West, the product
of a rape. As Jayne's mental state deteriorated, Peter was often neglected
by her and taken care of by the bohemian set she shared a house with, usually
at their convenience. Finally, when Peter was eight, Jayne snapped and
castrated her son, the only explanation she offered to the authorities being
a simple "I had to". Peter was then raised by his uncle, Joseph West, in
Ann Arbor, Michigan, where Joseph encouraged Peter's interest in singing.
ANGELICA PERREY-GEORGIOU: (b. 15 April 1899; d. 1985) Angela Perry is
the daughter of Big Joseph and Nora Perry, Lutherans from a small farm just
outside Swanton, Ohio. Like Peter, she's an OCA1a-type albino, but being
a product of the early 20th Century, she briefly toured as a member of a
circus sideshow. With the circus, she acheived worldwide fame as "Angelica
Perrey, the White Rose of Paris" with a fictional bio created for publicity
and a fake French accent taught by the Quebecois bearded lady; she was popular
amongst the circus and circus-goers alike for her beauty, wit, and sweet
disposition. She met a Greek acrobat during her second year with the circus,
at the age of seventeen, and after a courtship of less than two years, they
married. With the circus, she learned to play the violin and was discovered
to have a natural talent for it. After retiring from the circus just before
the onset of the Great Depression, she signed on with the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra.
ANN ARBOR CHARACTERS
RIPLEY HAGGARTY: (b. 1958) Ripley is the only son of obscure Beat Generation
poets Jimmy Haggarty and Muriel Gorski. Ripley, though, has a talent for
music and electronics and from the age of twelve onward, built theremins
that he would sell on consignment at local music stores such as Oz and Herb
David Guitar Studio, and would also construct keyboard synthesizers and
other electronic instruments of a more experimental nature. He met Peter West
in 1980, and they formed the band ANGEL in 1982.
PADRAIC & PEARSE KINSEY: (b. 1959) Padraic & Pearse Kinsey were
born in Bangor, Northern Ireland, and moved to the US with their mother in
1975. They are conjoined twins, connected at the hips and with a pair of
legs between them. They dated Ripley during his senior year of high school,
then dated Gaz Donaghue.
LILLIAN DONAGHUE: (b. 1955) Is the twin sister of Gaz Donaghue and moved
to the US when Gaz convinced Peter to take her on as his voice coach. She
introduced Peter to New Wave music.
MOD CHARACTERS
GAZ DONAGHUE: (b. 1955) Gary "Gaz" Donaghue is a female-to-male transsexual
man from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and is the twin of Lillian Donaghue.
He returned to Belfast after the emotional stress of breaking up with Peter
and was very soon afterward reunited with his old friends from the local Mod
scene. After finishing his photography and journalism degree at university,
he started a fanzine and worked as a freelance photographer.
ALICE REAGAN: (b. 1955) Alice was born and raised in Cork, Ireland,
until the age of fourteen, when her parents moved to Belfast for political
reasons. She soon befriended the pre-transition Gaz Donaghue in school.
During university, she organised and DJ'd popular basement parties that
were essentially the predecessor of the club Back Street.
JACE HANVEY: (b. 6 November 1956) Jason "Ace Jace" Hanvey is the eleventh
and final child of Old Ruth Hanvey (born when she was 44) and her late husband
Richard. He was raised spoilt by his mother and occasionally disciplined
by his eldest sister Katerine. Despite being prominent in the local scene
as a "top Face", he was a source of annoyance to Gaz and his friends until
1982, when he came out as gay.
NINO MITROPOULOS: (b. 30 July 1958) Nino was born in London to Marie
Mitropoulou (neé, Monfa), the daughter of French immigrants, and
Spiros Mitropoulos, the second son of Greek immigrants. His parents were
'58 Generation Mods and he and his father come from a centuries-old tradition
of tailors.
DOUGAN HANVEY: (b. 1955) Dougan Hanvey is Jace's nephew, the son of
Jace's eldest sister, Katerine, and an Afro-Caribbean (Bajan) immigrant dock
worker. He has a talent for piano and plays both Hammond and Vox Continental
electric organs. He was the first, and for the longest time, the only one
amongst his friends who owned a car.
OWAIN SHAUNNESSEY: (b. 1937) At the age of twenty, Owain was evicted
from his family's home in a working-class Gaeltracht neighbourhood of Belfast
on account of his mother discovering a stash of The Young Physique in his
mattress. Suddenly devoid of any family members who wanted anything to do
with him (save a sympathetic aunt living in a tiny boarding house room),
he moved to London a few months short of his twenty-first birthday for two
reasons: The Jazz scene (as they called it then), and the homosexual underground.
SPIROS MITROPOULOS: (b. 1938) Spiros is in the first generation of his
Aeolic Greek family to be born in the UK, and the last in a centuries-old
tradition of a family of Thevian tailors. Stylish, motivated, and only just
a little bit impatient with his mother, an enthusiastically gregarious hostess
to all manners of human wildlife, and frustrated with his father, who has
high ambitions for his boy.
MARIE MITROPOLOU: (b. 1939) Marie is a no-nonsense young woman with a
gift for numbers and for making the best out of whatever life, her husband,
her mother-in-law, or her "hint-of-mint" male friends can throw at her. A
peculiar kind of existential atheist who believes "god" is best defined as
"probability personified".
COLIN GOW: (b. 1939) Colin is not a Jazz fan; he's a motorcyclist who
hangs out at The Ace Cafe near the railway loading docks. His Scottish parents
are divorced, and after a few too many fist-fights with his step-father, has
since lived with his grandmother in Brixton. After Owain, his favourite
things in the world are his motorcycle, Buddy Holly, and Boodle's Gin.
BRIAN LOPER, JOSEPH SAUNDERS, DEVIN CLAYPOOL: (b. 1937-1940) Three of
Spiros and Marie's "lavender" friends from the Jazz clubs, though technically
Brian and Spiros have been friends since childhood.
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