The Impossible Knife of Memory

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2014

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-25

Chapters 26-42

Chapters 43-59

Chapters 60-77

Chapters 78-94

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Themes

The Power of Memory

As the title suggests, the power of memory is a central theme of the novel. Andy is haunted by memories of the things he saw and did while at war. He desperately wants to forget these memories but cannot. They have taken control of his present life because it takes all his energy just to fight against them. He says, “the remembering takes up every breath until there is no room for today” (236). He drinks and uses drugs so he can try to black out the memories and emotional distress they cause. However, he also drinks because he hates the life he is living. He says, “I pour a drink, ten drinks, so I can forget that I have forgotten today” (236). Essentially, the harder he tries to forget, the more he loses control of his life, which hastens his spiral into a mental health crisis. The memories “play on a continuous loop” (236), and so does his behavior.

Hayley also wants to forget her past, and she was fairly successful at doing so while she and Andy were on the road. Hayley is better at blocking her memories than her dad, but they do start to resurface as the novel progresses. While she chooses to not remember things, many of her memories, unlike her father’s, are actually happy memories. Living in her old town, she starts to recall good times with her grandma and Trish. Though these memories are positive, Hayley would rather bury them because it hurts to think about how different her life is now. If she does not remember those good times, then she does not have to cope with losing them or confront the full reality of her unhealthy home situation. Like Finn suggests at the end of the novel, however, memories can “make us feel safe” (391), and Hayley lost a lot when she chose to forget.

The novel’s title concedes that having memories is challenging. Anderson calls memory a “knife” because memories, whether good or bad, can hurt. She calls it an “impossible” knife because it is impossible to fully forget the past, and it is also impossible to keep good memories without bad ones.

Families Are Complex

The complicated nature of familial relationships is a central theme in the novel. Hayley’s family is nontraditional, as she lives in a single-parent household with her dad. She has lost three mother figures: first, her biological mother Rebecca, who died in a car accident when she was a baby; second, her grandma; and third, Trish, her dad’s former girlfriend who left them several years ago. Hayley was frequently left by her dad, too, during his many deployments, and she feels left by him now as he struggles with depression and abandons most of his fatherly responsibilities. Hayley is often forced to play the parental role in the relationship, yet she is loyal to her dad and loves him deeply. She believes that other students at her school have “no idea how freaking lucky they were” (60) because she cannot fathom their home situations being as difficult as hers. She sees her peers as innocent compared to her, calling them “ignorant, happy little rich kids who believed in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy” (60).

However, as the novel progresses, Hayley realizes that her family is not the only one with problems. Her best friend Gracie is stressed and unhappy about her home life, which is crumbling due to her dad’s affairs and her parents’ constant fighting. Gracie laments, “Why can’t they just be parents?” (128). This leads Gracie to believe that all men are cheaters, and she starts fights with her boyfriend Topher over it. She applies to colleges in California hoping to distance herself from her family. Finn’s family is struggling financially because of his sister’s drug addiction, and he worries that he will never afford his dream college. His sister’s addiction has also caused his parents to live in different cities. He tells Hayley, “My parents are tired and miserable and it’s mostly a disaster” (168). Hayley’s peers are not, in fact, “happy little rich kids” (60) but are affected by their family members the same way she is.

The Trauma of War

The trauma that Andy endures due to his wartime experience is central to the plot. Andy’s trauma is the catalyst for the novel’s central conflict, namely, the way his self-destructive behavior affects Hayley. His untreated mental health is the reason he and Hayley spent years traveling cross-country, and the reason Hayley worries so much about him, to the point that her life revolves around him (an inversion of the parent-child dynamic). Andy’s deteriorating condition, unhealthy behavior, and suicidal thoughts reinforce the theme that war is traumatic.

Anderson uses the novel’s structure and figurative language to enhance this theme. She disperses several chapters from Andy’s perspective throughout the novel, which allows the reader to see his thoughts and feelings. This helps the reader understand why he acts the way he does. The figurative language in these chapters enables the reader to understand his experiences more powerfully, in a way that a literal retelling of his experience would not. For example, Andy personifies death in his narration, showing that it is a real, living presence in his life.

Importantly, the novel shows that war does more than damage the lives of those who fight. As Andy says, “I try to ignore Death, but she’s got her arm around my waist, waiting to poison everything I touch” (301). An additional effect of war is that its destruction radiates outward; in this case, it poisons Andy’s relationships. Hayley and Trish are victims of the war in the way that Andy’s behavior hurts them. Andy and Trish’s relationship was so strained by his trauma that it became abusive and contributed to her alcoholism, and ultimately fell apart despite their love for each other. Meanwhile, Hayley has to witness her father deteriorate and take care of him as well as herself. This is an inordinate amount of stress to place on a child’s shoulders, and as a result, Hayley internalizes the situation in an unhealthy way. Her “threat…assess…action” behavior demonstrates how Andy’s trauma influences her decisions and thought patterns, and it reflects the fight-or-flight mentality Hayley has adopted in everyday life—another unhealthy coping method learned from her father’s example.