An Acceptable Time - Major Characters

Major Characters

• Alexander Murry — an astrophysicist in the employ of the Federal government of the United States in earlier books, he appears to be semi-retired (or at least self-employed) in An Acceptable Time. His theories about the tesseract and "tessering", first seen in A Wrinkle in Time, continue to be his life's work. He suffers from arthritis and sometimes rides a tractor on the family's farm land. He is Polly's grandfather.

• Katherine Murry — a microbiologist and Nobel laureate, Polly's grandmother works from the lab located at her rural home. Although she has an electron microscope, her work in recent years consists primarily of thought experiments.

• Polly O'Keefe — The eldest child of Meg Murry and Calvin O'Keefe, Polly was named Polyhymnia by her eccentric godfather, Canon Tallis, but uses the name Polly in later books (and Poly in earlier ones). Polyhymnia is the name of one of the Greek muses. Tall, thin and red-haired like her father, Polly has only recently become attractive to adolescent boys. She speaks a number of languages, and her facility for learning them enables her to learn Ogam well enough to communicate with the ancient tribes.

• Dr. Louise Colubra — The Murry family doctor and a close friend of the family, she lost her husband many years ago and never remarried. Louise the Larger, a telepathic snake, was named for her. She consulted with Dr. Kate Murry about Charles Wallace's "mitochondritis" in A Wind in the Door, but is generally adverse to fantastical explanations for events around her. Sister of retired Bishop Nason Colubra

• Bishop Nason Colubra — Louise's brother, a retired bishop and amateur archaeologist, he studies Ogam artifacts and is the first character to encounter the time-traveling druids of the People of the Wind, sometime prior to the start of the novel. He is the third of L'Engle's characters to be based on a real person, in this case David Somerville, the retired archbishop of Vancouver.

• Zachary Gray — An on-again, off-again student, Zach is interning in a law office at the beginning of An Acceptable Time. His boss there is interested in Ogam writing and Zach learns enough of this language to communicate somewhat with the People of the Wind and the People Across the Lake. Zachary grew up with an abundance of money and freedom but little love or stability, and vacillates between his desires for redemption and self-destruction. As of An Acceptable Time, his desire for self-preservation in the face of serious heart disease overrides all other considerations. Charming, exciting, unpredictable and emotionally needy, Zach brings out the best in Polly, but she cannot save him from himself.