Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt
Characters in Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt
8 characters, main characters first.Main characters
Travis Smith
Death himself, living in human form in a small British city and easing people through their final moments before his detachment starts to give way.
Supporting characters
Dalia Willard
A midwife who moves in across the hall from Travis with her daughters and slowly draws him into an ordinary family life.
Layla (Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt)
Dalia's bright, curious eight-year-old daughter, who befriends Travis and becomes central to the novel's emotional core.
Samuel Preston
Dalia's younger brother, whose sudden death in a car accident opens the novel and sets its meditation on grief in motion.
Nick (Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt)
Layla's father and Dalia's former partner, working to overcome addiction and become a more dependable presence in his daughters' lives.
Neda (Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt)
Dalia's younger daughter, a baby who grows up over the course of the novel alongside her sister Layla.
Minor characters
John Lamb
An elderly poet who has outlived his loved ones and meets his own end with unusual calm and gratitude, one of the people Travis attends.
Mansoor Gupta
A widowed printer among the people Travis attends, whose story threads themes of grief and unfulfilled ambition through the novel.