In Nikki Erlick’s The Measure, identical boxes arrive worldwide, each holding a string that reveals the length of a person’s life. The revelation fractures families, friendships, and nations, dividing people into short-stringers, long-stringers, and those who refuse to look. Against this backdrop, a tight-knit set of characters navigates love, choice, and responsibility while the world chooses sides.
Main Characters
The narrative of The Measure unfolds through a core group whose intertwined stories capture radically different responses to the strings.
Nina
Nina, a New York editor and long-stringer, begins as a planner convinced she can reason her way through the crisis, only to discover how little control she truly has—especially when her partner, Maura, is revealed as a short-stringer. Protective and fiercely loyal to both Maura and her younger sister, Amie, she struggles with anxiety and obsessive research before learning to relinquish control and savor the life in front of her. Her journey charts a move from denial and fear to presence and resilience, ultimately honoring promises and building a new family after profound loss. In both her private devotion and public steadiness, Nina embodies the novel’s meditation on Love, Loss, and Sacrifice. She is introduced in the Chapter 1-5 Summary.
Ben
Ben, a young architect in New York and a confirmed short-stringer, loses his relationship and privacy when his ex, Claire, opens his box without consent. Shy but imaginative, he retreats into himself until a short-stringer support group—and an anonymous correspondence with Amie—helps him rebuild meaning, community, and hope. Choosing love, purpose, and family over fear, Ben demonstrates that a good life is defined by its richness, not its duration. His arc champions the novel’s central idea that the measure of life is more than time, aligning with The Meaning and Measure of Life. He is introduced in the Chapter 1-5 Summary.
Maura
Maura, Nina’s partner and a short-stringer, channels grief into action, becoming a charismatic advocate for short-stringer rights. Impetuous where Nina is cautious, she faces her fate head-on, finding courage in community through the support group and eventually dedicating herself to the Johnson Foundation. Her leadership pushes back against prejudice and policy that target short-stringers, reframing mortality as a call to meaningful resistance and solidarity. Maura’s legacy—personal and political—bridges intimate love and public change, engaging the themes of Societal Division and Discrimination and Confronting Mortality. She is first seen from Nina’s perspective and later receives her own chapter in the Chapter 6-10 Summary.
Amie
Amie, Nina’s younger sister and a fifth-grade teacher, refuses to open her box, choosing the freedom of uncertainty over the certainty of knowledge. Romantic, empathetic, and quietly brave, she falls for Ben through letters before knowing who he is—or how long he has—then decides to love him anyway. Her steadfast choice to live inside possibility complicates her bond with Nina while illuminating the novel’s debate over destiny and agency. Amie’s story explores Fate vs. Free Will and culminates in a tragic, tightly woven twist that reveals how deeply the characters’ lives are entwined. She is introduced in the Chapter 6-10 Summary.
Supporting Characters
These characters widen the novel’s lens, linking private choices to public consequences.
Hank
Hank, an ER doctor with a very short string, brings a pragmatic, sometimes cynical clarity to the support group while mentoring younger members like Ben. Though he questions the point of saving lives when his own is so brief, he ultimately affirms purpose through action, sacrificing himself to protect others at a political rally. Hank reframes heroism as impact rather than longevity. He is introduced in the Chapter 6-10 Summary.
Jack Hunter
Jack, a military cadet from a powerful political dynasty, begins as insecure and self-protective, convincing his best friend Javier to switch strings so he can avoid combat. Haunted by that cowardice after Javier’s death, Jack grows into moral courage, publicly defying his uncle Anthony and exposing the truth. His awakening breaks a family pattern and challenges abuses of power. Jack’s story begins in the Chapter 6-10 Summary.
Javier García
Javier, Jack’s best friend and roommate, is an honorable, driven cadet who embraces service even after learning he has a short string. He agrees to the switch with Jack and lives his remaining years with purpose, ultimately dying a hero whose memory galvanizes others. Javier becomes a symbol of the value and dignity of short lives. He is introduced in the Chapter 6-10 Summary.
Anthony Rollins
Anthony, a charismatic congressman running for president, exploits fear of the strings to consolidate power, advancing policies like the STAR Initiative that institutionalize discrimination against short-stringers. Manipulative and ruthless, he uses his own family as political theater until Jack’s defiance and Javier’s legacy expose his tactics. Anthony embodies Power, Politics, and Social Control. He is introduced in the Chapter 6-10 Summary.
Minor Characters
- Lea: A kind, optimistic short-stringer from the support group who becomes a surrogate for her brother and his husband, her pregnancy serving as a quiet emblem of hope.
- Sean: The compassionate, insightful facilitator of the short-stringer support group, a wheelchair user whose lived experience of being “othered” grounds his guidance.
- Katherine Rollins: Anthony’s ambitious wife and political partner, who briefly wavers when she believes her nephew Jack carries a short string.
- Claire: Ben’s ex who opens his box without consent and leaves him, a betrayal that propels his entire transformation.
- The Support Group (Terrell, Chelsea, Nihal, Carl): A chorus of short-stringers whose shared fears and small triumphs illustrate diverse ways of coping, central to the events of the Chapter 11-15 Summary.
Character Relationships & Dynamics
At the heart of the novel are two couples whose choices reverberate outward: Nina and Maura, and Ben and Amie. Nina’s need for control collides with Maura’s headlong bravery, yet their love deepens as they learn to meet mortality with presence and action. In parallel, Ben and Amie build a relationship grounded in honesty and imagination—he knows his time is short, she chooses not to know hers—crafting a life that privileges meaning over measurement.
The short-stringer support group forms a chosen family that reshapes individual trajectories. Guided by Sean, members like Maura, Ben, Hank, and Lea transform isolation into solidarity: it’s where Maura finds her activist voice, where Ben finds belonging, where Hank reclaims purpose, and where Lea’s pregnancy becomes a beacon. Their bonds counter the stigma and policy-driven divisions that rise in the broader world.
The political and military thread—Jack, Javier, Anthony, and Katherine—exposes how private choices collide with public power. Jack’s guilt over the string switch with Javier ignites his moral stand against Anthony, whose fearmongering culminates in discriminatory initiatives like STAR. Javier’s sacrifice, echoed by Hank’s, becomes a moral touchstone that emboldens resistance and challenges the narrative that a short string equals a lesser life.
Across these interconnected arcs, alliances coalesce around dignity and agency: lovers choosing each other across asymmetrical futures, friends forging community against prejudice, and relatives breaking ranks to speak truth. The novel’s factions—short-stringers, long-stringers, and non-openers—aren’t fixed camps so much as evolving moral positions, with characters crossing lines as they confront consent, courage, and the limits of control.