So Far Gone

“‘Acerbic?’ He let the letter fall to his side. ‘Seriously, who asks for help this way?’ Still, in a flash of pride, he admired the rich language—recluse, squalor, acerbic—Bethany still had a way with words. At one time, he had thought maybe she’d become a writer, like he used to be, but she lacked the patience, he supposed. Or maybe the confidence.”

This early passage gives the reader a glimpse at the nuanced relationship between Rhys and Bethany. Rhys takes offense to the way Bethany depicts him in her letter, yet he is also impressed by her eloquence. This foreshadows many aspects of the dynamic that drives the action of the novel, including the way Bethany perceives Rhys and the way she and Rhys navigate their feelings over her disappointed ambitions.

“Some days, reading the news felt like being on a plane piloted by a lunatic, hurdling toward the ground.

And to have his daughter not see this, to have her decide that, in fact, it was Kinnick and his reaction that were the problem—No religion! No politics!—made him feel so disoriented, so alone, so…bereft.”

In the first flashback of the novel, Walter makes it clear that Rhys is driven away not just by Shane’s provocations, but by Bethany’s insistence on remaining neutral to Shane’s aggression. This drives Rhys’s misperception that, because Bethany will not support him against her husband, she no longer needs him. This effectively catalyzes his self-exile.

“He used to imagine that, when the last copy of his book was gone, Kinnick would be gone, too, wiped from the earth. This felt like a relief at times. The world had no use for him, or for his curious little book (and, more than likely, would have even less use for the unwieldy second book he was writing, should he ever finish it). It was a kind of delusional self-centeredness, connecting his failure as a writer to the culture’s growing rejection of science, philosophy, and reason, of basic common sense. But, of course, when he was moping around, thinking about his slim foothold in the publishing world, he didn’t consider that his daughter and his grandchildren would surely outlive his little book…

Right, he thought. We live only as long as someone remembers us. Only as long as someone cares.”

Walter contrasts Rhys’s intellectual pursuits against his family, exploring a larger question of how to define legacy. This contrast underscores the folly of Rhys’s self-exile, as he had chosen to neglect his family for the sake of his intellectual pursuits. As a consequence, Rhys’s legacy is doomed to sink into obscurity unless he acts for the sake of his family. This passage is crucial in establishing his motivations for the rest of the novel.