Mockingbird

“In hopes that we may all understand each other better.”

Mockingbird, despite dealing with a school shooting and a child who is often ostracized because of her developmental disability, features an optimistic ending. That hopeful close echoes the novel’s optimistic Dedication—the solution, as Caitlin discovers, is mutual efforts to empathize with one another.

“The gray of outside is inside. Inside the living room. Inside the chest. Inside me.”

Caitlin, who is fascinated by the power of words, feels more than she can explain. In the immediate wake of her brother’s murder, she struggles to define what is wrong with her, or the dimensions of this feeling. The gray she uses (from the gray sheet that covers her brother’s unfinished Eagle Scout project) suggests her ambivalence and uncertainty.

“Dad talks to the world outside the sweater and his voice makes a low-hummy-vibratey feel. I close my eyes and wish I could stay here forever.”

In the opening chapters, Caitlin seeks the protective isolation of private spaces like the hidey-hole in her brother’s room. During the reception at her home after her brother’s funeral, Caitlin seeks to escape from the press of people and the uncertain feelings she has; she finds shelter nuzzling up to her father and slipping under the generous folds of his sweater. Such sanctuary, she will come to understand, is not enough.