Domestic abuse
Domestic abuse takes place in this story as a major plot moment. When the father says to the mother, "Why don't you go shoot yourself?" there is no mistaking this hateful language. It's verbal assault, but it's not even the worst part of the father's abuse. Mostly, his abuse takes the form of narcissism. When the kids and the mother hide to surprise the father, he never even looks for them. He just sits down and drinks a beer. He is aloof and uninterested in his own family, so the tone of the family is hateful and detached.
Mental health issues
One of the main thematic issues of the story is mental health. There is a silent assumption that Gus is hateful and aloof for unacknowledged mental health issues. Also, the mother commits suicide, the family thinks. Also, each child has their own variation of the same depression and hatred that started the mess, and they only ever unite at the funeral of the mother.
The tragic life
All in all, the Vincent family is a troubled one, and the novel centers around the way life can really be for people who endure difficult family situations, and the path it sets a person on for their life, or at least their young adult life. Most of the children in this story end up using serious drugs, suicidal and depressed. There is no mistaking it; the novel is an attempt to show how mental health moves from generation to generation, spreading through abuse and dysfunction.
