Clinical Depression
Retrospectively, the narrator comes to realize that her mother has quite likely been suffering from clinical depression throughout most of her life. This was before medication was available and there was still a strong stigma attached to psychiatry. Thus, a third option was widely pursued:
“the less we spoke about it, the less we acknowledged it outright, the less real is might become, like a demon that grows petulant when ignored and searches for a more attention believer.”
“Forensic Burning”
Every college has its stupid rituals and forensic burning is a big one at Wellesley. It started out as actually burning textbooks literally to symbolically represent…something or other. Like all ritual, it is a mindless physical acting out of something that is supposed to be metaphorically significant:
“The idea was to not let knowledge just sit around…Kill it before it suffers from old age.”
Mother/Daughter Relationships
Central to the book is the examination and analysis of the complexities of the mother/daughter relationship. It is a shifting and uneven foundation that always carries the ability to surprise, especially when medication is added to the mix:
“My mother was watching me, smiling. It was as if someone friendlier and infinitely more relaxed had taken up residence in my mother’s body.”
Big in Japan
The narrator recalls how her mother used to making appointments in clothing stores in Japan every summer to buy things for her, but gave up by the time she hit the seventh grade. Nothing ever fit quite right and soon it became obvious it was a losing battle:
“It was like a weird nightmare, like shopping with all the money in the world in a country for dolls.”
All the World’s a Stage
The narrator is heavily invested in the theatrical possibilities at college and it is clear she views much of life as a performance. This is never more so true than one night standing on the sidewalk looking at her parents’ house so that it becomes like a set on a stage:
“The light went out in the living room, and then, a few minutes later, in their upstairs bedroom. It was like watching a play not yet meant to be seen.”
