Pucking Around

In Pucking Around, each of the main characters must face limiting elements from their past and move away from those constraints in order to build the unconventional life they desire. As the group dynamic gains complexity, this transformational growth is often found in the comparatively simple act of openly sharing their desires and boundaries. This transition takes time, however, for at the beginning of the novel, Rachel, Jake, and Caleb fail to recognize non-monogamy as a viable path to a lasting, loving relationship, instead allowing themselves to be constrained by the dominant cultural assumption that finding one committed partner is the ultimate romantic success. For Rachel, who has long struggled with commitment, letting go of this ideology reveals an underlying fear that has been holding her back. As she confesses, “I’m not good at labels and cages […] Sometimes I think I was just wired wrong. Everyone wants to get married, right? People want the normalcy of monogamy and the 2.5 kids. […] But I never wanted that life” (348). However, once she permits herself embrace a different model of kinship-making, Rachel is finally able to contextualize her fears and pursue a meaningful, lasting relationship with her multiple partners.

More frequently in the novel, however, letting go of the past comes in the form of relinquishing the pain of old trauma. For Rachel and Ilmari, these past traumas are based on problematic family dynamics. For example, because Ilmari was abandoned by his birth father, he must own learn not to let his fear of abandonment keep him from allowing love into his life. For Rachel, her traumatic experiences with negative publicity that utterly destroyed her family lead her to fear that her current actions will bring harm down upon her new, chosen family members. She harbors a belief that public attention is inherently bad, but over the course of the novel, she comes to decide that love is more important than the risks that accompany it. Ultimately, it takes the encouragement and “grand gesture” of her partners to reassure her that publicly declaring their relationship can have positive benefits, and she and the others are rewarded by the positive reaction when the Price polycule proudly declares itself to the world.

Jake and Caleb’s past trauma comes from a very different source, for they both suffer from different regrets over the circumstances that led to Caleb’s injury and retirement from the rink. Each of them has been attempting to process these feelings alone, but Rachel helps Caleb see that his habit of ignoring his anger is maladaptive. She says, “You’re angry at the world for your lost chances […] You’re full of so much anger, Cay. You need an outlet for it. You can’t bear it all alone, so stop trying. Let me help” (350). Far from being a negative influence on the relationship, Rachel and Caleb’s mutual combativeness offers Caleb an outlet to exorcize this anger, which helps him to heal. By contrast, Jake, whose veneer of cheerfulness is a method of hiding his own lingering emotional pain over the incident, has a much slower recovery from his emotional trauma over Caleb’s injury. Jake blames himself for failing to protect Caleb from the violent outburst of the player who permanently injured him, but because he has not dealt with his inner conflicts, this trauma is triggered at a highly inopportune moment, causing him to lash out in the midst of a game at the player who once injured Caleb. Yet, just as Rachel helped Caleb deal with his pain regarding this incident, so too does Caleb help Jake, promising him that there is nothing to forgive and nothing to regret. This scene of confession leads to their mutual acknowledgement of romantic love, thus fully validating their burgeoning relationship.