Not Quite Christine
There is something inherently a little left-of-center about guys who name their car. When you think about it, it’s a pretty weird thing to do. But that weirdness is assuredly doubled at the very least when the name they pick is Ethel. What kind of person names their muscle car Ethel? As it turns out, James more than qualifies as offbeat for a number of reasons beyond this strange characteristic:
“Ethel is James’s 1969 El Camino. She’s old, moody, and so ugly she’s beautiful. I love the sound her engine makes—the mean, sexy rumble that turns heads on warm spring nights when we drive past the stretch of outdoor restaurant patios along Brookside. Last year, before James told his dad he was asexual and his dad stopped looking him in the eye, the two of them had rebuilt Ethel from the wheels up.”
The Psychology of the Runner
Rowan puts imagery to efficient effect in describing what it means to be a runner. The imagery portrays the psychological state of mind of those people you see jogging around town and also explains why you never see them beaming with the grin of the alleged runner’s high:
“There’s always been a love-hate thing between me and running. First off, if you don’t get it over with at the ass crack of dawn, the Oklahoma summer sun will melt you into a puddle of good intentions. Plus, it hurts. I mean, have you ever seen a happy jogger? We scowl. We pant and grimace. In fact, if you ever see one of us smiling, you should assume we’re a complete psychopath and run for your life.”
Foreboding Foreshadowing
As the 1921 section of the narrative moves relentlessly toward its violent climax steeped in historical fact, the narration becomes an act of foreshadowing. There are still a couple more sections narrated by William left to go before everything erupts and the description of heading toward the site of where that explosion takes place is eerily at odds with what it is come:
“The sun was only just starting to drop at that point, meaning sunset was still a ways away. But there was a quietness to the streets I didn’t like. People were about, to be sure; men, mostly, headed in the direction of the courthouse. A few children played in yards, too, and every now and again we’d pass a woman sitting out on her front porch, snapping beans or darning socks. Even so, the air had a hushed feel to it, like the city was holding its breath.”
The Littlest Things
It is a strange quirk of history that little things can become the stimulus for devastation and disaster. The narrator of the 1921 section of the novel reveals his racism, his ignorance, his immaturity and his lack of interest, desire and perhaps capacity to apply critical thinking skills all in one tightly compacted imagery-laden paragraph:
“Hate balled up inside me like a brass-knuckled fist. And when he slowly, slowly ran his fingertip across her skin, every foul emotion in the world churned deep down in the depths of my belly. Glancing sideways at a white woman was near enough to get Negroes lynched in Tulsa. Shot, even, in the middle of Main Street at noon, and with no more consequence than a wink and a nudge and a slap on the back. And God help me, that’s exactly what I wanted for the man touching my Addie.”
