47 pages 1 hour read

Redhead by the Side of the Road

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020

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Important Quotes

“Does he ever stop to consider his life? The meaning of it, the point? Does it trouble him to think that he will probably spend the next thirty or forty years this way? Nobody knows. And it’s almost certain nobody’s ever asked him.”


(Chapter 1, Page 5)

This quote summarizes the isolation Micah has created within his own life. The questions refer to Micah’s repetitive and somewhat aloof lifestyle and hint at Micah’s unwillingness to understand the benefit of change. The distanced narration shows how Micah remains separated from those around him.

“When Micah was behind the wheel he liked to pretend he was being evaluated by an all-seeing surveillance system. Traffic God, he called it. Traffic God was operated by a fleet of men in shirtsleeves and green visors who frequently commented to one another on the perfection of Micah’s driving.”


(Chapter 1, Page 8)

Traffic God is a manifestation of Micah’s perfectionism. Micah has a very strict personal routine as well as a housekeeping system, both of which he maintains as perfectly as he can. His particular preferences come out in his driving as well, and to make it more bearable, he has come up with Traffic God, which serves to justify the extra time and attention Micah dedicates to his driving.

“He and Cass had been together for three years or so, and they had reached the stage where things had more or less solidified: compromises arrived at, incompatibilities adjusted to, minor quirks overlooked. They had it down to a system, you could say.”


(Chapter 1, Page 20)

This quote shows how Micah views his relationships at the beginning of the story. He sees the compromises and adjustments people make in a relationship through a systematic gaze, believing that things have settled and no more unexpected issues can arise.

“Why! he always thought to himself. What was that little redhead doing by the side of the road? Because even though he knew by now that it was only a hydrant, still, for one fleeting instant he had the same delusion all over again, every single morning.”


(Chapter 2, Page 27)

This quote, which refers to the title of the book, illustrates the misconception that Micah makes every morning on his jog. Without his glasses, Micah frequently mistakes the same fire hydrant for a small redheaded child, despite knowing better from his many experiences with the same thing. This misconception represents Micah’s repetitive lifestyle and the way he does not work to correct his own misconceptions regularly or adjust his way of thinking about the world.

“The thing about old girlfriends, Micah reflected, is that each one subtracts something from you. You say goodbye to your first great romance and move on to the next, but you find you have less to give to the next. A little chip of you has gone missing; you’re not quite so wholly there in the new relationship.”


(Chapter 2, Page 38)

As Micah reflects on his past girlfriends, his observation about relationships reveals a lot about his own sense of self. Micah feels he did not fully give himself to any woman he met after Lorna, and even less of himself as the years went on with subsequent girlfriends. Micah seems to feel this is a fact of life—that he cannot help giving less of himself because there is less of him to give after each relationship. This quote reveals how Micah sees himself in relationships.

“With Cass, things were more…muted. Lower-key. Calmer. And certainly there was no talk of marriage. If Micah had learned anything from all those previous girlfriends, it was that living with someone full-time was just too messy.”


(Chapter 2, Page 38)

This quote represents how Micah sees his relationship with Cass compared to his previous girlfriends. Micah likes that he and Cass keep their lives separate by living apart and not discussing marriage. This foreshadows the disconnect between them when Cass leaves Micah, citing that he did not ask her to move in when she believed she’d lose her apartment.

“Micah came to a halt. He had handled this all wrong, he realized. But even given a second chance, he wasn’t sure what he’d do differently.”


(Chapter 3, Page 59)

This quote takes place immediately after Brink leaves Micah’s apartment, having been forced to choose between calling Lorna or leaving. Micah feels he messed up by driving Brink out. Micah recognizes that he did not do things properly with this unprecedented situation. However, Micah isn’t sure how to change things, showing that he struggles with self-reflection when things don’t go perfectly for him. This quote hints at why Micah does everything he can to control the way things are in his life, from routines to careful driving, in order to avoid the unexpected and unfavorable outcomes he may face.

“Apparently she had no idea what was really making her angry, but Micah wasn’t about to tell her.”


(Chapter 3, Page 62)

This is one of the many misconceptions Micah draws about people throughout the book. Here, he is referring to Luella Carter’s illness. Micah tends to feel like he knows better than those around him. Later, Micah feels ashamed when Luella conveys that she does understand the source of her anger.

“It was her speech to the children that had won him. ‘A roomful of broken hearts’! He liked that phrase. But now look.”


(Chapter 3, Page 69)

As Micah reminisces about how he met Cass, he hangs on the phrase she uses to describe the people who are old and alone. He likes the phrase so much that he decides to ask her out. Now, he feels like he relates to the phrase after Cass has left him, as he, like the elderly people Cass originally was describing, has no one left.

“They laughed again, and Micah gave an exaggerated scowl. He wasn’t sure why he played along with them like this. (Even encouraged them, some might say.)”


(Chapter 4, Page 75)

After being teased by his family for his stringent cleaning routine, Micah acknowledges that he’s probably encouraged this joking around by being so matter-of-fact about his business. Micah seems to be okay with the light-hearted teasing because he acknowledges the differences between himself and his family. He prides himself on his cleaning and is okay with his messy family teasing him for it because he sees his way of living as superior to their own chaos.

“‘When Robby needed help with his reading,’ she told Lily, ‘—that’s Nancy’s oldest, my grandson—Cass stepped right up to help. She’s a teacher, you know. We were worried Robby might have a learning disability, but Cass was so patient with him! And that was all he needed, it turned out. Oh, everyone thought the world of her.’”


(Chapter 4, Page 75)

In this quote, Ada gushes over Cass’s willingness to help the family. Ada’s characterization of Cass as patient is important because, in the previous chapter, Micah wondered why Cass wasn’t patient with him and didn’t give him a second chance instead of breaking up with him. This also shows Micah’s family’s fondness for Cass, contrasting the way they treat him.

“All day he had felt a nagging ache in the hollow of his chest. He felt as if he’d flubbed up in some way. In fact, in many ways. Getting dumped by Cass, sending Brink off who-knows-where…and Micah’s sisters were right; it was cruel to let Lorna go on wondering whether Brink was lying dead someplace.”


(Chapter 4, Page 93)

Near the end of Chapter 4, Micah begins to do some reflection about the events of the last few days. Having spent time with his family, has a better perspective on things that he may not have considered before. This quote shows how Micah is smart enough to heed advice and reflect on things, but he often lacks input from others about what is going on and thus never makes changes. Here, he chooses to inform Lorna about Brink because of the perspective he’s received from his sisters, who are also concerned mothers.

“He momentarily mistook the hydrant for a redhead and gave his usual shake of the shoulders at how repetitious this thought was, how repetitious all his thoughts were, how they ran in a deep rut and how his entire life ran in a rut, really.”


(Chapter 5, Page 97)

Here, Micah is beginning to grow aware and tired of the repetition that he’s maintained in his life, right down to the same misconception he makes every morning on his walk. It’s the first time he is conscious of the way the repetition has put him in a rut. This shows how Micah feels his life might not be going anywhere.

“He had a sudden vision of himself as he’d been the previous evening, slumped on the couch drinking too many beers and playing too many games of spider.”


(Chapter 5, Page 117)

After returning to a lonely house with some clutter he’d yet to pick up due to Lorna’s visit, Micah once again becomes self-reflective, imagining what he must have looked like from an outside perspective. Until this point, Micah has mostly lived in his own head, but now he’s becoming self-aware of his own reality, and he likes it less and less.

“And when in the end she had sat him down and told him, in a sorrowful tone, that she was leaving him to go off and spend the rest of her life saving wolves, he had felt almost relieved. Free again! Free of all that fuss and bother.”


(Chapter 5, Page 118)

As Micah thinks about his last breakup before meeting Cass, he acknowledges how relieved he was. His perspective on relationships was that they were too much fuss and too much work. He realizes how little he actually enjoyed being in them when he was younger. This shows how Micah is unwilling to put in work and effort to maintain relationships. He prefers stagnant things that leave room for predictability, like what he believed he had with Cass.

“The stage where I’m planning what to wear and putting on my makeup, thinking this time things might work out. And when they don’t, I’m like, Well, at least that part was fun. That part was worth something. You have to pick yourself up and carry on, is what I say.”


(Chapter 6, Page 124)

In this quote, Yolanda explains to Micah why she persists in her search for romance. She has gone on multiple dates with internet strangers that have not worked out and now wants to know if Harry the carpenter is single. Micah cannot fathom what she gets out of the repeated failures, but Yolanda presents him with a new perspective on second chances.

“In fact, he found it silly to this day, but even so he wished now that he could relive that particular moment. This time, he would just let himself enjoy the way her nose wrinkled when she talked about something that tickled her.”


(Chapter 6, Page 126)

Here, Micah recalls a story of Cass telling a story. He thought it was silly the way she changed her voice, but Micah is realizing that he shouldn’t have dwelled on that detail. Rather, he wishes he had just enjoyed the little things about Cass that he did like instead of fixating on the thing he didn’t.

“He opened the fridge and stared into it a moment, but then he shut it again. It was too early for a beer. Too late for another coffee. He didn’t even want anything; he just wished he wanted something. In fact, now he wondered why he’d been so eager to get back home.”


(Chapter 6, Page 134)

Micah is beginning to realize how lonely his life is at home with no one else around. He thought he’d be relieved to be home for the day and relax, but nothing his house offers would fulfill him. This quote helps to illustrate the emptiness Micah feels as he realizes what his life has become.

“The wait was so long that when he heard a text arrive, he decided to risk checking it. Who knew? It could be Cass. (Come back! she might write. I can’t think what made me act that way.)”


(Chapter 6, Page 134)

In this quote, Micah abandons one of his strict principles because he is preoccupied by his thoughts of Cass. He’s always obeyed every traffic law and courtesy, but his desire to be with Cass again is causing him to reassess his priorities.

“Something about the living area struck Micah as too revealing. His previous aimlessness and boredom hung in the air like a leftover cooking odor.”


(Chapter 7, Page 143)

After inviting Brink inside, Micah begins to feel self-conscious about the way he’s been living since his breakup with Cass. He worries Brink can tell that he’s done nothing but drink beer and play spider solitaire. Self-consciousness is new to Micah, who has matter-of-factly defended his habits and way of living throughout the novel prior to this moment, showing that he is beginning to see himself through the eyes of others.

“Sometimes when he was dealing with people, he felt like he was operating one of those claw machines on a boardwalk, those shovel things where you tried to scoop up a prize but the controls were too unwieldy and you worked at too great a remove.”


(Chapter 7, Page 151)

After getting off the phone with Donnie Carter, Micah begins to reflect on how he handled the interaction. He realizes he should have asked more questions and compares his social issues to struggling with a difficult, and often rigged, claw machine.

“He recalled the vague dissatisfaction he’d started feeling in her presence, and his suspicion that she, in turn, had begun to notice his own flaws. It was dawning on him, he remembered now, that theirs was not the perfect love he had once imagined it to be.”


(Chapter 7, Page 163)

Throughout the novel, Micah retrospectively views his relationship with Lorna as perfect until she cheated. He justifies his distanced relationships through the pain he experienced after she cheated. However, Micah must reevaluate his recall of the relationship when Lorna tells him that they were experiencing a rough patch and communicates how Micah made her feel back then.

“You have to wonder what goes through the mind of such a man. Such a narrow and limited man; so closed off. He has nothing to look forward to, nothing to daydream about.”


(Chapter 8, Page 167)

As the final chapter takes on a present-tense narration, it shifts to a more external perspective on Micah. The distanced view helps to highlight how aloof he is to others, but this time it’s more critical than in the first chapter. This helps to highlight the negative things Micah has realized about his life throughout the course of the novel.

“He has noticed that his faulty vision most often reveals itself in attempts to convert inanimate objects into human beings.”


(Chapter 8, Page 169)

Micah is recognizing that he cannot always see things clearly. This refers not just to his literal vision but also to the flawed way he interprets others and the world around him.

“But somehow, at the end of an entire day of doing everything he was supposed to he just runs out of enthusiasm.”


(Chapter 8, Page 171)

This quote shows how Micah is exhausted by his daily routine. He’s looking at his mess from the previous night and realizes it would be better if he cleaned up after himself before going to bed. However, he’s so exhausted from following the rules he’s created for himself all day that he lets this slip.

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