Finch goes to a meeting at Life is Life, a support group for teenagers who have contemplated or attempted suicide. He is avoiding Violet because it’s too exhausting to hide how he’s really feeling, and he can’t bear to let her see that. Finch doesn’t like the other people in the group, and the guy leading it doesn’t say anything he hasn’t heard already. They have to go around and say their names, followed by “___, is life.” Finch says his name his Josh Raymond, and that the Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect is life.
Someone comes in a few minutes late. To Finch’s shock, it is Amanda Monk. She says she is bulimic and that she tried to kill herself twice with pills. The conversation, about all these kids who have done nothing wrong but were born with different wiring, only depresses Finch more. They have all attempted suicide, and Finch feels superior because he hasn’t—not because he doesn’t want to, but because when he does, he will be successful. Everyone is talking about their various mental health diagnoses and Finch feels like he is the only one who is just Theodore Finch, and not some label.
After not hearing from him for a few days, Violet is worried about Finch. She asks her mom if she can take the car—which makes her mom extremely happy—and drives to his place. He lets her into his closet home, which he calls a fort, and they stick post-it notes with nice words on the wall and tear post-it notes with bad words into tiny pieces. They have sex, and then Violet feels like he’s gone somewhere else, but he opens up and tells her that he gets into these “black moods” sometimes. He tells her the story of the cardinal that died when he was a child, and says that that was the first black mood he remembers. At that moment, it hits Violet that Finch isn’t just hanging out in the closet, he’s living there. Finch says he kept her secret, now it’s her turn to keep his.
At school, Amanda tells Violet in secret that she saw Finch at Life is Life. She is worried about him but doesn’t want to pry, knowing that that might make him disappear. His birthday is the next day, so he tells her to come over in the evening; he has a surprise planned. When she gets to his house, he has changed his look again, and he’s in a good mood; she doesn’t want to bring up the hospital or Life is Life and upset things. With her eyes covered, she walks into his closet, where he has made their own Jovian-Plutonian gravitational chamber, everything glowing like they’re in space. They eat Chinese food, and Violet notes that is the “single loveliest thing” (302) anyone’s ever done for her.
She gives him an inscribed copy of The Waves, and he talks about black holes. When she says he is the best friend she’s ever had, she starts crying, and Finch asks her what’s wrong. She says Amanda told her about the pills and the hospital and Life is Life, and that she’s worried and doesn’t know what to do. Finch becomes defensive, saying he doesn’t need help. He tells her that just because she couldn’t save Eleanor doesn’t mean she should try to save him. Violet gets angry and leaves. When she gets home, she tells her parents the truth about everything: Finch saved her that day on the bell tower; she has been seeing him and she’s sorry about that, but she needs them to help her make sure he’s okay.
The Markeys try to call Mrs. Finch but never get a hold of her, even when they show up at the house. Violet sends him messages of apology but doesn’t hear back, and Charlie and Brenda haven’t heard from him but don’t think anything of it. Violet is beginning to panic. She goes to his house, where she meets Decca, who also hasn’t seen him in a while. Finch’s room is eerily empty, with all of his chosen possessions he’d had in the closet gone. She calls him several more times, leaving voicemails.
Finch reads Robert Lowell’s poem “Epilogue,” and wonders, “Which of my feelings are real? Which of the mes is me? There is only one me I’ve ever really liked, and he was good and awake as long as he could be” (314). He recites a line from Woolf’s suicide note, and then a line from Pavese, and thinks of several beautiful moments he remembers, all having to do with Violet. Finally, he sends her a few cryptic messages, but his phone is off when she tries to call him. His mother assures the Markeys that he is checking in every week, and so there is no need to call in a psychiatrist or the police. Violet is furious; her boyfriend is a missing person, and his own family doesn’t seem to care.
Analysis:
The metaphor of the Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect returns, essentially as a stand-in for Violet, which is what he really means when he says “life is__.” Yet again, Finch is saying something that has a deeper meaning than what’s on the surface; but of course, no one can see that besides him, because he continues to speak in coded language. Even though he’s brought himself to the support group—a significant first step—he doesn’t let go of the wall he has. The fact that Amanda Monk, one of the biggest perpetrators of Finch’s harassment, is also at the group for attempted suicide only underscores how common—how non-freakish—mental health struggles are.
When Finch tells Violet about his black moods, he is revealing a part of himself to her, but still not giving the whole story. As far as Violet is concerned, it’s the same moodiness that she and the rest of her peers experience all the time. This presents an interesting dialogue with Finch’s hatred of labels; while there is certainly merit to his argument about people being more than a diagnosis, this scene in the closet also demonstrates the ways in which naming something can in fact be useful. Finch is speaking cryptically about these moods he gets in and this memory he has of a dying cardinal, but he never actually tells Violet he has depression, and never tells her he is suicidal. While his fear of being reduced to a label is valid, we can also see how it would be more helpful if she knew that what he was talking about was a serious mental health condition, and not some common teenage feeling.
Only when Amanda tells Violet about Life is Life does she start to understand the severity of the situation, and then she struggles to navigate it. Finch has made it clear that he keeps that part of himself private, but Violet loves him and is worried about him, so what is she supposed to do? She is in a catch-22: say something, it will go bad, say nothing, it could be even worse. Their word, “lovely,” comes back again when Violet reacts to Finch’s reenactment of the Jovian-Plutonian gravitational effect. It is lovely, but it also follows a pattern of Finch leaving reality for another realm; looking back on all of their adventures, the vast majority of them entail going someplace else. Even when they’re together at home, they talk about all the places they’d like to go.
There is a symmetry in Violet’s departure from Finch and arrival to her parents' house: it’s not just a literal arrival to the house, it is an emotional arrival, an opening up of all the things she’d been keeping from them, a move back to their closeness. She walks out on Finch, but not really—she just doesn’t know how to help him in the moment, but she knows she should tell her parents, and that they should talk to her family. The Violet of a few months ago would have rather died than have her parents find out about the bell tower, but she has a newfound understanding of what’s really important in life, and a newfound emotional strength thanks to Finch.
Violet and her parents are the only ones who seem to be worried about Finch, which highlights the depth of the neglect going on in his household. Structurally, Violet’s voice is beginning to take over—as Finch disappears in the story, his voice disappears in the narrative. In the moment when we do spend some time in his perspective, it is mostly words of other people, all of which illuminate an element of his battle with bipolar disorder. As we know, Finch has always found lots of meaning in the words of other people, but the tone of this chapter seems to push that even further. It's not just that he's pulling from other people's words; it seems that his voice is being replaced.
