Ownership of Ideas
This novel pursues various aspects of a theme related to the ownership of ideas. Novelist and protagonist Jake Bonner has clearly put a great deal of thought into this concept, developing a philosophy which paints in metaphor: “Once you were in possession of an actual idea, you owed it a debt for having chosen you, and not some other writer, and you paid that debt by getting down to work, not just as a journeyman fabricator of sentences but as an unshrinking artist ready to make painful, time-consuming, even self-flagellating mistakes.” The underlying thesis of this philosophy is a reversal of expectations. Notice that Bonner transfers ownership to the idea itself. This metaphorical concept will prove integral to the plot as it reveals a tendency by Bonner to rationalize how an idea choosing a writer fundamentally shifts responsibility of ownership.
Half-Right
Jake meets a Seattle radio programming director when he arrives for an interview on a show hosted by former Seattle Mariners pitcher, Randy Johnson. Johnson casually engages in locker room banter with Jake before the interview, describing the programming director, Anna Williams, using a simile and a metaphor. Of Anna, Johnson notes that she: “looks like a featherweight, but she’s a heavyweight when it comes to getting her way.” The imagery alludes to the weight classes in boxing in which the maximum allowed for a featherweight is 126 pounds while the minimum for a heavyweight is 200 pounds with no maximum limitation at all. Technically speaking, the comparison Johnson intends is partially unsound since boxing’s class divisions refer only to standard requirements of weight. Johnson’s use of these two divisions as metaphor asserts the weight difference but also implies an inherent division of ability. This is an aspect of the weight classes that does not exist. That is why it is often said of middle legend Sugar Ray Robinson that he was, pound-for-pound, the greatest boxer to ever step into the ring.
Unofficial Nickname of the University of Washington
Eventually Jake will marry the woman who looks only looks like a featherweight. Immediately after the interview, he learns more about her. For instance, she grew up in Idaho before attending the University of Washington. He also learns that this institution of higher learning has a darkly metaphorical nickname. The school is “famous for being Ted Bundy’s first playground.” Bundy, of course, is one of America’s most notorious serial killers who terrorized the Pacific Northwest for several years. Ultimately, the decision by Anna to include this fact among the things which Jake learns about her on the day they meet will prove to have a deeper resonance than its seemingly random quality initially suggests.
Talented Tom
“Over eight months of this, innuendo and threats and hashtags to spread the poison as far as it could go, and nothing had made it stop!” This the unspoken thought of an increasingly desperate and paranoid Jake. Talented Tom is the fake online persona of an unknown stalker who is making what should be the best days of Jake’s life a nightmare. "Eight months" is a reference to how long Talented Tom’s emailed warnings have been showing up in Jake’s mailbox. This is the revelation that this mysterious person seemingly knows every detail about how Jake stole a former student’s story idea to produce his wildly successful new novel. Eventually, of course, Talented Tom ups the ante by threatening to fully expose the fraud.
Branded Names
Before Talented Tom enters the picture, everything is going so smoothly for Jake that he actually is enjoying the best days of life. “Despite the incandescent events of the past several months—Oprah! Spielberg!—and the ongoing astonishment of his book’s ever-growing readership, he was actually happier right at this moment…than he’d been in months.” The metaphor at work in this quote may not be immediately apparent. The phrase “incandescent events” may seem a likely possibility, but no. It is the sudden interjection into Jake’s thoughts of the exclamatory mention of two of the most iconic figures in pop culture history that is metaphor. Literally referring only to a woman named Winfrey and a man named Steven, the exclamation points are the key. The incandescent events to which he is referring is the resurrection of his career as a writer from the dead and into a household name. The sudden explosion of “Oprah! Spielberg!” briefly interrupts the direction of that thought while also being integral. This almost bizarre celebratory crying out of just one name of two mega-famous celebrities is a metaphor intended to represent the idea of fame itself.
