Inconvenient love
Can love be convenient? Unfortunately, it can’t in this narrative, because otherwise people would not waste their time, energy and emotional strengths, on people who don’t love them back. Claire could leave her husband and start everything anew with a man whose past and present were less problematic. She understands it perfectly well that her husband can ruin their family life, but she just can’t turn her back to him. Love isn’t always easy, but, as long as it is not abusive, it has a right to exist. We live in the imperfect world where nothing flawless exists.
Mental health
Mental health was once a taboo topic. More often than not, to lose one's mind means to become an outcast. The protagonist of the story has been through a lot and – as the result of years of emotional and physical abuse, alcohol use and whatnot – he has an inferiority complex. It prevents him from being happy, pursuing his dreams, loving and being loved in return. Neither his wife nor his children can help him. His inferiority complex is something he has to deal with on his own. One of his high school best friends, talented Shake, a promising writer whose bright future seemed to be the only one thing everyone was sure of, is betrayed by his own mind. Schizophrenia turns him into shaking and lonely madman.
An inferiority complex
The protagonist gets used to the idea of not being accepted. He doesn’t believe in equality at all. All his life people has been treating him differently, because he is black. They are afraid of his skin color and the consequences of being called a racist. Even when he was a schoolboy his classmates “knew better than to attack a black kid, not because of what might happen” to the protagonist, but “what would happen to them.” It is important to mention that the protagonist suffers from an inferiority complex and that is one of the reasons why he thinks that people find him boring, disgusting or unworthy. His psychological problems prevent him from living a happy life.
