So This Is War

“I lean back ever so slightly as I take in the rest of his face. Strong, carved jaw sprinkled with a coarse five o’clock shadow. Distinctive cheekbones that are not too pronounced but high enough to offer this man some heavenly bone structure. A thick head of soft brown hair with a singular curl that falls over his forehead. And a pair of lips just full enough to entice anyone to beg for a make out session. He…is…hot.”

The use of descriptive language and detail conveys Wylie Wood’s intense physical attraction to Levi. Wylie uses adjectives including “strong,” “coarse,” “distinctive,” “high,” “heavenly,” “soft,” “singular,” and “full” to vivify Levi’s appearance and convey her physiological response to being in his presence. Her attraction to him in turn incites conflict between the characters as they try to balance their personal and professional lives.

“A master’s in business doesn’t provide a stable future. A master’s in business is like throwing a coin in a pond and hoping someone makes your wish come true. I don’t want a desk job, something that bores me day in and day out, and over the past year, I’ve come to realize that’s exactly what will happen if I continue moving forward with this degree. I don’t want to waste my time or your money.”

Wylie’s use of metaphor, anaphora, and repetition affects an urgent tone. She is confronting her dad about what she wants. She doesn’t disguise her feelings and instead uses language that underscores her belief in what she’s saying and what she wants. The intensity of her speech is integral to understanding her motivation throughout the novel, as her desire to pursue her artistic goals and avoid business school is the only thing keeping her from initially pursuing Levi.

“Nope, it’s the fact that I know that face. I know that voice. I’ve touched those legs. I’ve kissed those lips. It’s the redhead from the bar. The girl I’ve been searching high and low for over the better part of a year. The girl who haunts me in my sleep. The girl I think about whenever I consider hooking up with another woman. The one I compare everyone to, who no one ever comes close to matching. The girl I hired a fucking private investigator to find. That’s how goddamn desperate I was.”

Levi’s use of repetition, anaphora, and expletives capture his intense emotional and psychological response to discovering that Wylie is Coach Will Wood’s daughter. He repeats the words “I’ve” and “The girl,” which creates an urgent, shocked tone. Indeed, he is trying to reconcile his dreams with reality, and his language enacts this experience. It also indicates how his attraction to Wylie mirrors her intense attraction to him, affirming the high stakes created by the sexual tension within their professional relationship.

“I’ve pushed that one night to the back of my mind, almost to the point that I’ve completely forgotten about it until Dad told me I would be working for Levi Posey. Then it all came flooding back with a vengeance. The command in his hands. The teasing but deep tone of his voice. The way his lips controlled me. The scruff of his five o’clock shadow.”

Wylie’s use of fragmentation and description in this passage conveys her internal struggle. Quinn presents the latter five lines of the passage in one-sentence paragraphs on the page. This stylistic choice captures Wylie’s mental immersion in her memories of being with Levi and therefore the difficulty of trying to tamp down her associated sexual feelings.

“I fold the paper in half just as there’s a knock on my door. In a panic, I slip the paper between the pages of one of my coffee table books—get rid of the evidence—and then move to the entryway. Well, here we fucking go. Keep it professional. Don’t stare at her. Don’t drool. And keep it together unlike your nimrod friends who have no idea how to act around a woman.”

Levi’s calculated body language in this scene conveys his desire to compartmentalize his personal and professional identities to maintain control of his unprecedented circumstances. Furthermore, his use of fragmentation, direct address, and expletives underscore the tension he’s carrying in his body. The use of italics also provides a deeper evocation of Levi’s thought processes.

“You gave me one week to find housing, Dad. What did you expect me to do? Wait until the last minute? No, I’m serious about this. I want you to know that I can do this. That I can live on my own, support myself without your help, and make this dream of mine a reality.”

Wylie uses clear and direct language in her conversation with her dad to convey what she needs. She doesn’t disguise her emotions with metaphors or similes and instead employs simple syntax. This conveys how practical and straightforward she’s being, thus reinforcing how unreasonable and misunderstanding her dad is acting in return.

“Why? Doesn’t he want his daughter to be happy? I don’t understand this entire ruse. If I had a child, I’d want what’s best for them, and what’s best for them is their happiness. Why doesn’t Coach Wood want that? Maybe he’s unaware of what happiness is. He’s just an old crotch of a man with beefy shoulders and a bald head.”

Levi’s first-person narration provides insight into his private feelings and thoughts. He is asking himself questions about Wood and Wylie that he can’t share aloud. However, his narration offers access to his psyche and therefore conveys his true feelings: He’s unhappy with his coach. The arrangement Wood has created has only inspired further malcontent within his star player.

“My eyes slowly lift as anger sears through me. ‘You have got to be fucking kidding me.’ I hop out of bed, all of my exhaustion fleeing as red-hot rage and adrenaline pulse through me. ‘Is this real?’ I shake the paper at Sandie.”

The use of figurative language in this passage captures Wylie’s shock and anger after finding her dad’s email to Levi. The use of words like “sears,” “red-hot,” “rage,” “adrenaline,” and “pulse” enact Wylie’s internal upset and thus how hurt she feels by what she’s discovered. This level of anger is essential to understanding her motivation to manipulate Levi and work harder to prove her dad wrong.

“In any other circumstances, I’d be turned fully toward her, my hand on her thigh, my thumb rubbing along her smooth skin, moving higher and higher. I’d lean into her, touch her hair, stare at her lips, and get lost in her eyes. I’d make a fucking move, tell her how goddamn beautiful she is, how she steals my breath when she enters the room. But lucky for me, she’s completely and totally off limits.”

The use of the conditional tense evokes Levi’s imaginings, and thus his longing to be sexually intimate with Wylie. He also uses anaphora, starting each sentence with “I’d” or “I’d be.” He is inhabiting his fantasies and allowing his mind to wander. However, the final line in the passage abruptly interrupts Levi’s fantasies and enacts the complex power dynamic that dictates their relationship.

“Living with someone who gets angry at the drop of a hat is stressful. But I guess I just started to ignore it. There comes a time when you just think, they will always be angry, it’s not me, it’s them, and you move on.”

Wylie uses metaphor and fragmentation when she opens up to Levi about her fraught relationship with her dad. The “drop of a hat” metaphor enacts Wood’s volatile nature and captures the effects of his volatility on Wylie. The surrounding sentences use plain language and simple syntax, stylistic choices that convey Wylie’s desire to express her feelings and be heard. However, while she affects nonchalance, the impact of her dad’s anger issues is present in their relationship throughout the novel.

“And with every task that I checked off the list, I grew more and more frustrated, especially after Sandie left. I spent a solid hour sorting out pretzels for his snacks because he only wanted whole pretzels, no broken pieces. It was annoying and stupid and just made me realize how infuriating the entire situation is.”

Wylie’s language in this passage captures her fraught emotional state. Her use of words including “frustrated,” “annoying,” “stupid,” and “infuriating” in this brief three-sentence passage underscores her disgust and how trapped and powerless she feels in her new work arrangement.

“And sure, yes, I’ve been messing around with Levi because I’m irritated with him for being a part of this master plan my dad constructed, but would I have crossed that line with him…Maybe. Now, will I? No. Fuck, no. That’s a big fucking no and all because my dad thinks I have no willpower. That he believes instead of doing a job, I’m over here just fucking one of his players. Well, my dad can fuck right off.”

Wylie’s use of ellipses, punctuation, fragmentation, and repetitive expletives in this passage conveys her determination to stand up for herself and to prove herself to her dad. The punctuation shows that Wylie is actively thinking through her experiences. She is self-reflecting and questioning herself, while simultaneously making definitive decisions about what she wants. The unstructured, direct language is more realistic than stylistic, conveying her anger.

“Yes. I want her attached to your hip. Everywhere you go, she goes. I want her running around constantly. If we’re on the ice practicing, she’s watching you. If we’re out to eat, she’s there dabbing your face with a napkin. If we’re flying, she’s in the back, writing handwritten notes to your fans. She needs to be glued to you.”

Wood’s use of repetition and anaphora affects a determined, unbending, and unsympathetic tone. He is demanding that Levi treat his daughter poorly. Using the same repeated sentence structures enacts his refusal to change his mind about Levi and Wylie’s arrangement and underscores Wood’s often cruel and uncompromising manner.

“My easygoing attitude quickly flashes to annoyance, but he doesn’t seem to care as he takes a seat on the bed, kicks his feet up, wearing nothing but his briefs, and picks up the book I got him about Washington. ‘Pictures are great in this.’ Right. You’re his assistant. Don’t get caught up in him. Or the tasks. Or the irritation. Get the job done and work on yourself.”

The interplay between narrative description and Wylie’s internal monologue conveys Wylie’s attempt to balance competing feelings and parts of her life. She is attracted to Levi and can’t help noticing his physicality when they’re alone together. However, Levi’s actions also remind her that he’s her boss and that she has a goal behind her work. The latter six lines enact her attempt to refocus and capture her willpower and determination.

“Very romantic. Very intimate. Very not what I was hoping for. I’m trying to keep this professional. I’m trying to make sure I keep my hands to myself. But it’s as if something has switched in his head. The touches. The comments. The dripping-wet body in a barely-there towel. It’s almost as if the roles have reversed, and he’s taunting me.”

Each of these lines appears on the page as a single-sentence paragraph. This formal presentation enacts Wylie’s experience of slowly taking in the scene she’s observing and trying to reconcile Levi’s altered behavior with who she thought he was. It also builds tension, dragging out the rise toward the scene’s climax. This and other passages with this style contribute to both the narrative drama and the intensity of the characters’ sexual dynamic.

“With her palm flat on my length, I shift my pelvis into her hand where she squeezes me just enough to nearly make me choke on my own saliva. And that’s when I feel it, my will slipping. My focus draining. My mission failing. Because I want more. I want her to make me lose control. I want to get lost in her. I want to straddle her and play. Play with her chest. Her mouth. Between her legs. Fuck, I want this so bad.”

These lines also appear in the form of single-sentence paragraphs and thus augment the narrative tension and pacing. Furthermore, the presentation of the lines on the page and the use of fragmentation capture Levi’s emotional and sexual tension. By using this style of writing in both characters’ perspectives—Wylie similarly describes the scene one chapter prior—the author shows how their mutual attraction affects Levi and Wylie equally.

“‘We’re going to date. I’m going to woo the shit out of you so you won’t ever consider dating another man again.’ That garners a smile. ‘You’ll continue to work for me, but you won’t be doing weird shit anymore. […] And when the time comes, and you’re ready, we’ll tell your dad about us, but only when you feel like you have everything in place. Until then, we’ll keep this between us and only us.’”

Levi uses a direct and instructive tone as well as the future tense to express his investment in Wylie. He is telling her how their relationship will elapse so that she believes in their future together. He is also making promises to Wylie by communicating with her in this unbridled and unhindered manner.

“[Y]ou’re my fucking dream. Everything about you. I like your spunk and your attitude. I love your hair and your eyes, your fucking body. I love that you tell me what you want, when you want it. And I love how free you are, how open you are to new things. I’ve never truly been with someone before, someone I want in my bed, someone I want to wake up next to, and that should freak me out, but it doesn’t because this feels right.”

Levi’s use of expletives, repetition, and fragmentation convey the authenticity and urgency of what he’s saying. He repeats words like “fucking,” “love,” and “want,” which underscore the intensity of his feelings for Wylie and his desperation for her to believe in his devotion to her. After spending a large portion of the novel uncertain of one another’s feelings, open declarations of affection like this establish the couple’s dynamic and their desire to avoid miscommunication.

“I clutch the letter to my chest and let out a deep sigh. No one has ever done something so thoughtful for me. No prior boyfriend and certainly never my father…It makes me feel so cherished. As if what I need, what I feel, is extremely important. As I consider Levi’s apology, his restraint—and then his lack of restraint—his complete focus on me? That’s…incredible. Oh God…I think I might be falling for him.”

Wylie’s use of punctuation and diction in this passage shows her state of mind after she receives the chair and side table. The stylistic choices convey her self-reflective state and capture how moved she is by Levi’s love for her. He buys her furniture to help make her more comfortable and at home while also supporting her artistic endeavors, representing how much he values her as a person. This love starkly contrasts her relationship with her dad, who has often left her feeling isolated and unsupported.

“[My future] would look like this…Wylie as my forever girl and Coach Wood by my side, shaking my hand for being the best son-in-law he could have asked for. We’d joke […] then we’d hug each other because that’s what men do when they like each other. Then he’d sit me down, look me in the eyes, and say how proud he is to call me son. I’d grip his shoulder and say something like, he’s my second favorite father. We would laugh. And then of course…hug again.”

Levi describes his ideal future with Wylie and Coach Wood here. The use of the conditional tense in this passage enacts Levi’s drift into imagination and fantasy. He is allowing his desires to transport him out of the present and into a more idyllic future where he and Wood are friends. His affection for Wylie leads him to a dream of a sensitive, emotionally open, and unrestricted future. However, this ostensibly contrasts Wood’s withdrawn, flinty demeanor, which makes anything close to this dream unattainable.

“I loved the pictures. You are incredibly talented, and I thought your proposal, offering these prints to patrons who buy into a subscription every month, was genius. Deena and I were talking, and we both agree that this would be a very lucrative opportunity.”

Patty Ford’s use of affirmative language encourages and inspires Wylie. She uses positive diction including “loved,” “incredibly,” “talented,” “genius,” and “very” to convey her investment in Wylie’s work. Patty’s language and tone therefore make Wylie feel seen, understood, and valued, as she’s not used to hearing such validating language from authority figures in her life.

“I’ve called, texted, and attempted to show you that despite the dictator role you’ve taken up rather than a fatherly one, I still love you, and I still want to have a bond with you. But you can’t see that. You’re so blinded by your own hurt that you’ve switched off your ability to show affection to your own daughter. God, you won’t even accept it from your daughter.”

Wylie’s use of direct address, italics, diction, and repetition captures her desperation to be seen and understood by her father. She speaks directly to Wood in this scene and in turn, asks him to acknowledge her as a person and an adult. Furthermore, her use of words like “rarely,” “failed,” “refuse,” “dictator,” and “blinded” convey her frustration with her father and her determination to articulate how his behavior has affected her over time. After spending the events of the novel upset with him but still doing what he says, Wylie’s confrontation here provides catharsis that will ultimately lead to resolution.

“‘This…’—he points at the phone—‘this is her passion. This is what she’s good at. And you needed to see it. You need to see the heart she has, because it comes through in every drawing. She’s really fucking good, and I’ll be damned if you don’t acknowledge how goddamn lucky you are to have such a beautiful and talented daughter.’ He clears his throat. ‘I couldn’t give two shits if you like me, but don’t throw away a relationship with your daughter over this. She loves you. She wants to be a part of your life. Let her, Will.’”

Levi uses direct language, descriptive adjectives, and repeated expletives in his conversation with Wood to awaken his coach to the urgency of his familial situation. The drawing of Wylie and Wood represents the younger, less fraught dynamic that the two might’ve once had before Wylie’s expectations of a loving paternal relationship were dashed. Both the reminder of his impact on Wylie and the representation of her artistic skills prove to Wood that he needs to care for her, communicate with her, and value her passions.