Eggs

The tumultuous friendship between David and Primrose illustrates the idea that friendship can fill the voids left by inadequate parental and familial attention. Prior to the children’s first meetings, the novel emphasizes their nontraditional family structures to indicate that both children receive less support than they need and have a wealth of unresolved feelings that need to be explored and expressed before they can be fully healed. Most notably, David continues to seethe in silent anger and grief over his mother’s death, and as the new kid in town, he has no ready-made friends just yet. Likewise, Primrose has an absent father who only exists in a picture frame, a mother who is not entirely present for her, and no friends her age. With these strong parallels in their lives, the two children instantly gravitate toward one another despite their somewhat antagonistic dynamic.

From the very beginning of their unusual friendship, David and Primrose commiserate over their family lives, specifically their lack of traditional mothers. David complains about his grandmother because “She thinks she’s my mother. Nobody’s my mother” (64), to which Primrose replies, “Same here” (64). Although Primrose’s mother is alive, she relates to David’s longing for motherly experiences and laments that she is missing out on key childhood moments—like being read to sleep—because of her unusual mother.