Unplanned Pregnancy
The fourteen-year-old narrator of "When in the Dordogne" uses metaphor to describe the circumstances of his late addition to the family. "I was the martini baby, conceived, I’m sure, after one too many in late July of 1971." His middle-aged parents have already produced two girls and a brother who have already moved out of the house by the time the story takes place. This metaphor thus references those occasions of accidental pregnancies that result from an impairment of the sense of consequences resulting from intoxication.
Word Power
The stories in this collection are really all about, on one level or another, the power of words. Usually, this is referenced in the form of books or reading, but the narrator who is "martini baby" asserts at one point, "His words struck me like a slap." This metaphorical image illustrating the visceral power of words feels like it could just as easily show up in literally every other story in the collection. Such is persistence of its thematic relevance.
The Rochester
The opening story is a tale told by a teenage girl that is full of allusions to Jane Eyre only partly because the plot is about her taking on a position as a live-in babysitter in a semi-gothic setting. The girl is young Romantic perfectly constructed for transforming Charlotte Brontë brooding hero into a metaphor. "You cannot know these blistering feelings—you have not yet met your Rochester." These words written in a letter to a friend back home reveal the innocence of a girl whose experience with life so far has come mostly from the fictions she's read. Rochester as metaphor for a girlish idea of a darkly mysterious guy is tested.
The Hideous Home
"Mansard" is a story featuring a newly built home for a character named Frances that was designed by an architect with a reputation established enough that there are framed articles on the wall about him. Nevertheless, the narrator terms it hideous and "Audrey’s Larry said it looked as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to a perfectly good house and scattered the bits." As far as comparisons goes, the simile used here actually does little to convey exactly what makes the house so hideous. The knowledge that "mansard" refers to a type of roof often found atop barns may be of tremendous value in helping to see Larry's vision more clearly.
Jebediah
The first-person narrator of "Timeline" is coming off a breakup, dealing with a brother, and meets a college kid with long hair who shows her his driver license which features a photo that makes her think it is still his first and only license. Her commentary on the photo is that "He looked like hope itself." It is a very effective use of simile going for the same effect as Larry's comment about the hideous house. The difference is that while "hideous" can conjure infinite possibilities, "hope" here clearly looks like innocence untouched by disappointment of expectations. The narrator's characterization may say more about her state of mind than it does about the guy called Jeb.
