Family life
This book is a meta-narrative, because it is a book about a writer of books. In particular, it is about an important children's book author whose books are famous for instilling the principles of moral socialism, a political point of view motivated by empathy and equality. Yet, the author's family life shows an abstract imagery that is disproportiate to the insights her books provide. She is helping other women to mother their children with her moral principles, but her own children feel that she is not invested in their lives. They feel she is aloof, without empathy for them, and the husband argues that point blank.
Motherhood and feminism
The novel invites a criticism of feminism, but without providing any concrete reasons why a reader should conclude one way or the other about it. Sometimes it feels the novel is drawing attention to an inherent danger that politically active, career-minded women might leave a generation of children neglected, but then at other times, Olive is shown to be clearly heroic and basically good, and the portrait ends up being a rather tender and heartbreaking way of showing how quickly a reader could rush to judgment. When she realizes that her children are scared of her, she is motivated into a new season of art and life, perhaps a more empathetic season. In other words, she is dynamic and improving and worthy of pardon.
Affair and dysfunction
Fighting is an unpleasant reality in the Wellwood home. Their appearance in the public suggests what their public name suggests, that all is well in their neck of the woods. However, upon closer inspection, the elements of the father and mother's independent personalities are a constant drain on the family because they disagree with elements of the other person. This makes for a delicate unfolding of their specific dysfunction. When the children visit their uncle Basil, the children get to see another model for parenthood and they trade notes with their cousins by encountering their personalities.
Childhood and belief
The imagery that defines Olive's heroic quality is that she understands the abstract connection between childhood and adult belief. Even though she might not be called an intimate or skillful mother figure, she sees that children are constantly acquiring their parents beliefs through enforcement or disagreement. Her books urge children to consider the ethical principles that Olive derives from her own belief system. She is a socialist who places a lot of merit in equality and shared wealth. This imagery is valid but ironic, given Olive's simultaneous profession as a children's book author and her personal tendency to neglect intimacy with her own children.
