Clown in a Cornfield

In Kettle Springs, Quinn is heavily defined by her outsider status. She is a city girl in small-town America who can’t help but see her time in Kettle Springs as temporary. This motivation is reinforced by the shame she is made to feel for being an outsider. On her first day at her new school, Quinn is sent with her classmates to detention and is excluded from the conversation until Cole urges them to welcome her. When she later visits the Main Street Eatery with her father, Quinn is made to feel ashamed for being a teenager in a space the adults have claimed for themselves. Evidently, Quinn’s first experiences in Kettle Springs remind her that she doesn’t belong there. Her unease reflects a larger tension between mobility and rootedness, between the freedom of movement Quinn once associated with urban life and the rigid, inherited roles small-town communities can impose.

Cesare proposes, however, that Quinn isn’t alone in her outsider status. In fact, many longtime residents of the town are made to feel as though they don’t belong there, in some cases having to prove themselves worthy of calling Kettle Springs their home. This is evident in the novel’s use of