Frankenstein in Baghdad

Hadi is an alcoholic, impoverished junk dealer who lives in Bataween, as well as the creator of the Whatsitsname. Hadi suffers from extreme grief following the loss of his business partner and friend, Nahem, who died in a car bomb and whose body Hadi tried to piece back together to give him a proper burial. As a result, people like Aziz the Egyptian believe that the story is a manifestation of this guilt—Aziz and others who knew the pair recognize much of Nahem in the story, save for Nahem himself.

Hadi is a storyteller who likes to talk and make up stories for the people around the neighborhood, primarily in Aziz’s coffee shop, where Hadi spends a lot of time; although his stories are often clear rip-offs of movies and other tales already known to them, many people enjoy listening to him if only to try to catch him in a lie. However, he is not well-liked, and it is not clear to what extent Hadi believes his own stories. Hadi is ultimately arrested for the crimes of the Whatsitsname; however, Aziz and Mahmoud maintain that Hadi is innocent. 

Mahmoud is a journalist at al-Haqiqa, a Baghdadi magazine, and the primary receiver of Hadi’s story. Mahmoud is originally from Amara, but a dispute with a local gangster-turned-politician forced him to move to Baghdad. He is taken under the wing of Ali Baher al-Saidi, the flashy owner of al-Haqiqa, and becomes more like him as the novel progresses. Like many other ambitious characters, by the end of the novel, he is reduced to his roots, living back in Amara and hiding from the politician; it is ostensibly the sale of his digital recorder to the “author” that facilitates the novel.

Elishva, or Umm Daniel, is an elderly Assyrian Christian widow living in Bataween adjacent to Hadi, whom she hates. Elishva’s son Daniel never returned from war 20 years prior; Elishva has maintained a fierce belief that he is still alive and will one day return, and therefore she refuses to leave Baghdad for Australia, where her daughters live. As a result, when the Whatsitsname arrives one evening, she quickly believes him to be Daniel, even dressing him up in Daniel’s old clothes.

It is unclear how lucid Elishva is—at the start of the novel, she is oblivious to a massive car bomb that detonates just as her bus leaves the neighborhood, and she appears not to notice the substance of her conversations with the Whatsitsname. At the end of the novel, her daughters convince her to move to Australia by having her grandson Daniel pose as her son Daniel; she recognizes that he isn’t her son, but the resemblance is so striking that she finally agrees to leave Baghdad. 

Faraj is a small-time realtor and conman in Bataween. Following the US invasion of Iraq, Faraj used his friends in the regime as cover to steal numerous properties in the area and claim them as his own; as a result, he managed a modicum of success while also earning the ire of the community, including Elishva, whose house he continually tries to buy. Near the end of the novel, he manages to purchase both Elishva’s house and the run-down Orouba Hotel, but both are destroyed shortly thereafter in a massive car bomb.

Abu Anmar is the owner of the dilapidated Orouba Hotel, where Mahmoud and a few other guests are staying at the start of the book. Abu Anmar was a friend of the previous regime, but after the US invasion, his luck changed. He spends most of the book just trying to maintain the hotel before finally agreeing to sell it to Faraj; he leaves Bataween for good just before the explosion. 

Majid is the head of the Tracking and Pursuit Department, in charge of tracking and solving strange crimes to help predict where disaster will strike next; he was a member of the former regime who managed to survive the de-Baathification of the government in Iraq following the invasion. He is a complicated figure—some, like Saidi, believe him to be ruthless and dangerous; however, the novel portrays him instead as powerless and overlooked within the government, a fact that frustrates him to no end. He hopes that taking down Criminal X will earn him the celebrity and recognition he feels he deserves, but he instead loses his job and ends up working as a security officer in a remote Iraqi city.