All That Life Can Afford

All That Life Can Afford is a coming-of-age story that traces Anna Byrne’s journey of self-discovery while living in London, England. In leaving her home and family behind in Massachusetts, Anna convinces herself that she can escape her past self and become someone new. She chooses London, in part, to immerse herself in the geographical settings of her favorite novels, suggesting a desire to escape into a fantasy rather than engaging with her reality. Her mom’s death and the financial challenges and social alienation she’s faced since middle school have left her with deep-seated grief and trauma that Anna feels unable to face as the novel opens. In contrast to Anna’s reality, the Wilders’ opulent world represents the ultimate fantasy, but Anna quickly discovers that reinventing herself in this new setting will require her to abandon her true self, establishing an inherent tension between self-reinvention and authenticity. 

Across the novel, the tension between self-reinvention and authenticity creates moral, ethical, and philosophical dilemmas for Anna. To become someone new, Anna convinces herself that she must deny her past and don a new, fabricated identity. She is disappointed when she first comes to England and discovers that she’s “not a storybook heroine” after all, but that she’s still herself—meaning, “still broke, still trying to leave behind the secret of [her] own home, tense and worn and working-class” (16).