Bones
David Henry is an orthopedic surgeon and photographer. Both these pursuits are representative of fundamental character of his psyche: he is a control freak. Imagery recurs throughout the novel connecting his obsessive need to control things with firmament of bones, but one particular instance makes the imagery visceral by unifying both obsessions in a way that presents his aversion to the unpredictable in sharp relief:
“Not for him the random excitement of general medicine or the delicate risky plumbing of the heart. He dealt mostly with broken limbs, sculpting casts and viewing X-rays, watching breaks slowly yet miraculously knit themselves back together. He liked that bones were solid things, surviving even the white heat of cremation. Bones would last; it was easy for him to put his faith in something so solid and predictable.”
Water
In contrast to the hard predictability of bones is the shape of water: flexible and connective rather than brittle and wary of too much pressure. Water imagery is pervasive throughout the story, introduced in a variety of ways, but always as a means of conveying more an openness to the lack of control than the desire to impose it:
“There was the pleasure of the sunlight and Phoebe’s floating laughter and Al’s hands warm through the fabric on her back. They moved in the grass, turning with the music, connected by it. The traffic rushing by was as present and soothing as the ocean.”
“…their eyes met. It was a moment real to only the two of them, something that could not be proven later, an instant of communion subject to whatever the future would impose…his face and hers opening in pleasure and promise, the world crashing around them like the surf.”
Historical Context
The timeline of the novel stretches from the mid-1960’s to the late 1980’s and allusions and references are made to place the story in historical context. One of the events is the Kent State Massacre and the eruption of violence in a society-altering incident is juxtaposed with a major turning point in Norah’s life which is also visited by violence leading to a decision which reflects the alterations being made to societal expectation and conventions at the time:
“...after it was clear that all the wasps inside the bag must be dead, Norah kept dancing on the pulpy mess, wild and intent. Something was happening, something had changed, in the world and in her heart. That night, while the ROTC building on campus burned to the ground, bright flames flowering into the warm spring night, Norah would dream of wasps and bees, large dreamy bumblebees floating through tall grasses. The next day she would replace the vacuum cleaner without ever mentioning the incident to David. She would cancel the tuxedo for Kay’s fund-raiser; she would accept that job.”
Secrets
Secrets haunt David, especially the memory of the moment he gave his daughter away and lied to his wife by telling her the baby had died that he can never erase from the darkroom of his mind. His turn to obsessive photographer is realized in great part because of the power of to manipulate secrets frozen in time in that instant the shutter snaps. He tells his son that “Photography is all about secrets” and one of the aspects of the art is the ability to do something that memory has trouble doing: erasing secrets by, paradoxically, exposing them to light:
“In the darkroom again, he hung the photograph of that moment to dry. Unfinished, unfixed, the image wouldn’t last. Over the next hours, light would work on the exposed paper. The picture of Norah laughing with Howard would slowly darken until—within a day or two—it would be completely black.”
