The Medicine Man
Frick is the boyfriend of the narrator’s mother. He is not exactly the very model of a stoic shaman. He is, in fact, pretty extreme in his views of what qualifies as a genuine tribal native and what doesn’t. “I might as well drop you off at Save ’n Shop, let you go hunt like white people.” His view toward the narrator essentially occupies the latter space. This insult framed as a simile is in reference to David’s inability to shoot to death an innocent white rabbit. There is misplaced irony in the insult since the reference is to white people buying their food at the store: the rabbit was simply targeted practice and not potential food.
The Kid
There is a further irony to the rabbit shooting tale from David’s side. He is just a kid at the time and this story is a recollected memory. So much for the context of when he confesses about this visit to Frick’s camp when he actually invited David to go hunting. “He let me use his pump .22, and I enjoyed shooting cans—I felt like Han Solo.” Needless to say, the comparative point of the simile is murky at best. The point of the reference is that Star Wars penetrated so deeply into the American zeitgeist that it impacts kids on the reservation.
Darkness
If it’s a novel written after the dawn of the 20th century, it’s a good bet that darkness will be used as a metaphor somewhere within the pages. This book offers one more piece of evidence that darkness is the defining metaphor of the modern age. “Paige was like that: time and time again she slowly sank into some darkness, and then when it got no brighter she’d pack up and leave as if to chase the sun so it could never set.” The darkness into Paige occasionally sinks becomes a thematic bread crumb to follow through the non-linear arrangements of the book’s chronology. Questions that are raised about this habit of sinking before chasing after the sun are finally resolved in the closing story.
The Smelly Man
Frick is far from the most delightful character in the book, but he may be the most memorable. Dialogue, actions, and description all contribute to stamping him in the memory in a way that lingers afterward that doesn’t apply to everyone else. “He smelled sour like old grape juice filled with snuffed-out cigarette butts” offers an unexpected comparison with its simile that makes an immediate sensory impact. One can instantly engage sense memory compiled from their own experience to imagine the jarring impact of this olfactory collision. Because this description occurs early in the book, it can stick around and become impossible to read about Frick without that unique odor accompanying him.
Safe Harbor
The title of the story “Safe Harbor” is metaphorical. It is inspired by a metaphorical slogan written on a whiteboard inside the room at a crisis stabilization unit where the narrator’s mother is staying. “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” The narrator does not buy into the grocery-store checkout line self-help book pop psychology intimated by the slogan. The premise for him is unsound because humans are not constructed entities like a ship. Of course, it could also be that he is rejecting the notion because he has never personally experienced a safe harbor and it actually sounds like a pretty sweet circumstance.
