Overview
Middle schooler Doug Swieteck has two aggressive, troublemakers siblings, Christopher and Lucas, and an alcoholic father. Doug’s soul comfort is making his mother, an ardent homemaker and gardener, smile. Doug says that his most valued possession came from Joe Pepitone, a major league baseball player who visited Doug’s high school and left him his baseball cap. Christopher promptly took the hat and shared it around to his pals, hurting Doug. As the novel opens, Doug’s father loses his job, forcing the family to move to Marysville, New York. Doug’s mother breaks up her beloved garden plot, and Doug’s best friend, Holling Hoodhood, gives him Joe Pepitone’s jacket as a parting gift. Doug’s mother concerns that when Lucas returns from fighting in Vietnam, there will be little place for him in their new, smaller home.
At Marysville, Doug meets Lil, the daughter of a local deli, and he begins doing deliveries for her father. On one such delivery, he meets and befriends the eccentric novelist, Mrs. Windemere. He also visits the library regularly, where an illustrated book of birds by John J Audubon is housed behind glass. Under the supervision of a worker there, Mr. Powell, Doug begins learning to draw and paint the birds. Doug is sad to find that the library is taking photos out of the book and selling them off. By the end of the novel, Doug gets all of the pages from their various owners and returns them to the library.
Despite some skepticism around Doug because of Christopher’s purported crimes, Doug finds acceptance at school from select instructors, notably Mr. Ferriss and Miss Cowper, the latter even teaching him to read. Doug’s gym teacher, however, torments him and eventually tears Doug’s shirt off when he refuses to play on the “skins” team, displaying a tattoo that Doug’s father gave him to humiliate him: a chest tattoo that reads “Mama’s Baby.”
During a work function, Doug’s father anticipates winning a Babe Ruth trivia challenge, but Doug wins together with his teammate, and the company’s owner, Mr. Ballard. Later, Mr. Ballard delivers Doug’s father Doug’s winnings, a signed baseball and $100, but Doug never receives these gifts. Christopher grabs the baseball out of his father’s truck and delivers it to Doug, supporting Doug’s notion that Christopher isn’t actually all evil and isn’t to blame for Marysville’s recent run of break-ins.
Meanwhile, Lucas returns from Vietnam with post-traumatic stress disorder, partial blindness, and his legs have been amputated from the knee. He struggles to find job in Marysville, but he becomes an assistant coach at the end of the story when Doug connects him with his gym teacher, who also suffers from PTSD. After another break-in, the police arrest Christopher, but it’s evident to Doug that he’s innocent, and his father’s drinking companion, Ernie Eco, is the culprit. Ernie appears in public wearing Doug’s cherished Joe Pepitone jacket, stolen by Doug’s father. Doug’s father, in an uncharacteristically altruistic move, tips off the authorities, rescuing Christopher. He also returns Doug’s jacket.
At the novel’s climax, Mrs. Windemere has Doug and Lil (who is now Doug’s girlfriend), appear in her new play about Jane Eyre. Doug is intended to have a minor role, but he must play Jane when Lil takes ill moments before the performance. Doug performs well, despite his fears that audience member Joe Pepitone will look down on him for playing a woman. Later, Joe asks Doug for his autograph, and Doug thanks him for being his inspiration. Following the play, Lil has developed a potentially deadly illness. The novel concludes ambiguously with Joe getting into her hospital bed and declaring that he hears the beat of the wings from Audubon’s Artic Tern.
The coming-of-age tale tackles with complex problems, like alcoholism, cycles of abuse, and class prejudice. The novel’s message is one of hope, as Doug changes from an apathetic “skinny thug” into a determined student who pushes everyone around him to try. Still, Schmidt doesn’t oversimplify the eventual outcome.
Chapter 1
One of the most essential conclusions from the novel’s opening part is the rigidity of gender roles in Doug’s universe. The urge to conform to one’s assigned gender role has an impact on practically every element of Doug’s life. For example, his mother is required to cook, clean, be attractive, and remain silent. She maintains all of the traditional feminine pastimes, such as gardening and baking, and always strikes a delicate balance between feeling and politeness. Doug’s mother’s acceptance of gender stereotypes has allowed her to integrate into society, but it has also locked her in a harsh marriage and a constrained life. Doug’s violent brothers and father, on the other hand, have too macho tendencies that allow no place for artistic endeavors, education, or conduct that could assist Doug in adjusting to his new surroundings.
Doug is also subject to stringent gender roles, which he continually strives to fit into, but is not always successful. Others mock him for his long hair, laughing at him for having such an allegedly feminine feature. His love of art is also something he conceals because art indicates emotion, and emotion means femininity. Doug is particularly drawn to the emotion in Audubon’s paintings, such as the dread in the tern’s eyes. Christopher continuously criticizes him for anything that resembles art appreciation or feeling. Even something as gender neutral as going to the library prompts Christopher to mock Doug about his lack of masculinity. Doug likewise goes out of his way to keep his emotions under control, as seen by his quiet goodbye to Holling and his refusal to express emotion after learning that Lucas has been injured and is on his way home.
Ironically, Doug’s love interest, Lil, does not follow gender norms. Despite the fact that she looks to be a loner, Doug is drawn to her ability to burp, tease, and physically compete with the boys around her. She appears to have gained access to a level of freedom that no one else in Doug’s life has.
This section of the narrative introduces Doug’s social challenges as the sibling of a troublemaker. As soon as the police suspect Doug’s brother of stealing, Doug becomes a social outcast in town. Despite suppressing his initial desire to bully Lil after he learns he’s acting like Christopher, the locals hold Doug responsible by association. He responds to this unfair treatment with disinterest, assuring Lil that the teachers’ treatment is irrelevant. He also approaches his homework with disinterest, telling Mr. Powell that he does not intend to read Jane Eyre. Doug believes that he would rather not attempt than fail at this point in his character development; this is a trait that will develop throughout the novel.
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Chapter 2
In this portion, Vietnam and its horrific consequences drive much of the action in the novel. The novel demonstrates how the war had a negative impact on far more than just the young men who were enlisted. This book makes it obvious that for the guys who did battle, PTSD is the norm rather than the exception. Lucas, who experiences the horrors of the war in his nightmares, and Doug’s gym teacher, who experiences the horrors of the war on paper, both demonstrate an inability to engage in the world correctly after seeing such horrible atrocities. They are both locked in a cycle of guilt and dread, which for Lucas manifests as hatred against himself, and for Doug’s gym teacher as anger toward his students. Even when complete strangers viciously attack Lucas for his role in the battle, he does not defend himself; his actions indicate that he believes he deserves their hatred just as much as they do. Lucas bears the bodily penalty as well; he is no longer able to move or see independently. In other words, the battle has rendered him paralyzed both intellectually and physically.
Doug’s mother’s suffering exemplifies the war’s cost. She struggles with the fact that her son has endured so much physical and mental anguish. It frequently puts her to tears—a stark reminder of how Vietnam affected more than just its soldiers. The repercussions of Vietnam also permeated schools, forcing hundreds of young children, including Doug and his classmates, to face the emotional brunt of their elders.
Another tendency to note in this section of the novel is that the majority of Doug’s older male figures who mistreat him do so because they themselves had been mistreated. Lucas treated Christopher and Doug poorly because his father mistreated him. Christopher mistreated Doug and others because of how his father and Lucas treated him. Mr. Spicer treated Doug with respect until he believed he was being mistreated by Doug’s brother, at which point he began to mistreat Doug as well. Doug’s gym teacher treats him badly, but it is later revealed that the teacher was previously a victim of similar mistreatment himself. Doug’s father is the only adult male who does not appear to have a rational explanation for treating Doug so cruelly. Doug’s father isn’t abused. He has a hardworking, patient, attractive wife, a good job, and a devoted best friend, but he is more gratuitously nasty than Doug’s other male mentors.
Chapter 3
Capitalism is one thing that haunts Doug’s existence in this segment, even if he never fully articulates it. The pressures of living in a capitalist society shape his and his family’s life, regardless of whether they work hard. Capitalism drives Doug to tote several pounds of groceries through a blizzard rather than sitting at home and studying in the warmth. Capitalism has desecrated the library’s valuable Audubon collection, causing a priceless drawing to be sold for the purpose of operating plows. Capitalism pushes Lucas to hunt for job every day, despite his physical and mental disabilities. Almost all aspects of the Swietecks’ existence have been commercialized. Unfortunately, capitalism does not trump ableism, and despite his determination and hard work, Lucas is repeatedly denied work based on his skills.
This part also contains an important insight on quiet. Silence frequently serves the purpose of protection in Doug’s life. Libraries, for example, are essentially silent, so it’s no surprise Doug frequently seeks refuge there. Furthermore, when Lucas is constantly berating others for his problems, Doug utilizes quiet to establish a barrier between himself and his brother’s anguish. When Doug’s father feels that his son has no worth to society because of his Vietnam injuries, the entire family relies on silence to keep from breaking down in the face of such vicious remarks. The silence occasionally aids the characters’ healing, but it mostly masks an angry current.
Doug’s coming-of-age story becomes more apparent in this segment. Doug used to be apathetic in the face of adversity, but he has gained confidence and is now seeking solutions to his problems through social connections. He befriends the callous gym teacher and offers advice on how to help others, arranges the return of two Audubon pieces by making friends with his father’s boss and the flutist, and even saves the policeman’s son’s life in the section’s final chapter, implying that he and Christopher are overcoming their negative reputations. His metamorphosis is most visible when he pushes Lucas to try, implying that Doug would no longer be apathetic about his future.
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Chapter 4
The book’s conclusion demonstrates the long-term power of a positive effect. At the beginning of the novel, nearly all of Doug’s male influences were negative. His father, Lucas, Christopher, and Ernie Eco were all physically and verbally abusive liars who built their lives on the shoulders of others rather than on the solid foundation of their own hard labor. As a result, Doug loathed himself and his surroundings. He was defensive of anyone who approached him, no matter how polite their intentions. Doug, however, became a changed young man once his influences expanded to include Mr. Ferris, Mr. Powell, and Mr. Ballard. In no other portion is the presence of good influences more palpable than in this final segment, where Doug learns to bend his rigorous image of masculinity and exhibit compassion and love despite the possibility of no reward. In a final, ironic rejection of traditional masculinity, Doug portrays a woman in the play and is praised by his hero, Joe Pepitone.
This final segment also reveals a change in Doug’s father’s character. Instead of being selfish and confrontational, the father appears to withdraw from the family, allowing them to bond without his intimidating presence. Doug’s father ultimately saves Christopher by providing the key tip to the police, implying that he will prioritize his family over himself in the future.
Doug not only changes as a result of his new male influences, but he also influences the males around him who have previously influenced him. His inability to tolerate Lucas’s lack of respect allowed his brother to release some of his pain and fury. His inability to consider his gym teacher as anything other than a suffering human being leads him to open up and discuss his painful experiences. His principal is moved to recognize his mistake in judging Doug and his family because of his honesty and true respect for art. While the first half of this story may have reminded readers of the fear associated with influence, the final portion all but celebrates the power of influence and its potential to generate possibility, as wonderfully exemplified by the new Doug Swieteck.
The final chapter leaves the reader guessing about Lil’s destiny. Either the beating of wings Doug says he hears represents hope for her recovery, or the wings are an angelic emblem indicating Lil’s death. In any case, the novel concludes on a positive note, with practically all of the characters having undergone positive transformations, and Doug realizing that his life in Marysville is fulfilling.
