A Tale of Two Women
The novel is really much more than a tale of two women. In fact, it is a tale of many women—or, at least, many females. That said, however, the plot turns on the behavior of two women who stand in oppositional relation to each other. Early on in the novel, the reader is reminded that opposites both attract and repels and this imagery foreshadows exactly the give-and-take between Mrs. Richardson and Mia drives the narrative toward its explosive conclusion:
“A sedan with air bags and automatic seat belts. A lawn mower and a snowblower. A matching washer and dryer. She had, in short, done everything right and she had built a good life, the kind of life she wanted, the kind of life everyone wanted. Now here was this Mia, a completely different kind of woman leading a completely different life, who seemed to make her own rules with no apologies…part of her wanted to study Mia like an anthropologist, to understand why—and how—she did what she did. Another part of her—though she was only vaguely aware of it at the moment—was uneasy, wanted to keep an eye on Mia, as you might keep your eye on a dangerous beast.”
The Toothpick Incident
“The Toothpick Incident” represents a major turning point in the novel. As a result of the story starting at the end and then being told as a flashback, the full consequences of that turn are not couched in the mystery that would exist were the story told purely chronologically. This prank that is successful beyond her wildest dreams becomes a transformative moment in Izzy’s life and it is perfectly clear where it leads. That this ultimate destination is act of pure fury and destruction, therefore, lends an unexpectedly ironic tone of emotionless distance to the imagery which builds to the incident:
“A toothpick, inserted into a standard keyhole and snapped off flush, is a marvelous thing. It causes no damage to the lock, yet it prevents the key from entering, so the door cannot be opened. It is not easily removed without a pair of needle-nosed tweezers, which are often not handy and take some time to procure. The more impatient the key wielder, the more firmly and insistently the key is jammed into the keyhole, the more tenaciously the toothpick will cling to the innards of the lock, and the longer it will take to extract it even with the right equipment.”
Mothers and Daughters
Males are mostly superfluous in the family dynamic of Shaker Heights. As adults, they are lawyers or clients; as teens they are lovesick victims of unrequited affection or self-centered stud enjoying the sex but rejecting the responsibility. It is a novel about the special relationship between mothers and daughters in all its infinite varieties which nevertheless share a universal collective:
“…your child wasn’t just a person: your child was a place, a kind of Narnia, a vast eternal place where the present you were living and the past you remembered and the future you longed for all existed at once. You could see it every time you looked at her: layered in her face was the baby she’d been and the child she’d become and the adult she would grow up to be, and you saw them all simultaneously, like a 3-D image…a place you could take refuge, if you knew how to get in. And each time you left it, each time your child passed out of your sight, you feared you might never be able to return to that place again.”
The Jerry Springer Show
Life in Shaker Heights is scripted reality; a reality show before such a thing existed. Every aspect of the planned community is carefully ordered through the cultivation of rules which the residents follows not merely because of the punishment awaiting if they are not. In contrast to that routine imposition of order is the chaos of society conceptualized into hour-long segments every afternoon on the Jerry Springer Show. The imagery describing this sacramental sibling bonding is suggestive of not just the Richardson clan’s reaction as a unit, but as individual expressions of their psyche as well. Izzy’s reaction in particular is worth noting as it once again situates her as a genuinely admirable modern-day literary creation:
“It was a little ritual the Richardson kids had developed over the past few years, one of the few times they agreed on anything…To Moody, it was a fascinating psychological study, every episode another example of just how strange humanity could be. To Lexie, it was akin to anthropology, the stripper moms and polygamous wives and drug-dealing kids a window into a world so far from hers it was like something out of Margaret Mead. And to Trip, the whole thing was pure comedy: a glorious slapstick spectacle, complete with bleeped-out tirades and plenty of chair throwing. His favorite moments were when guests’ wigs were pulled off. Izzy found the whole thing unspeakably idiotic.”
