Vanishing Acts

What makes up a person? Is it a conglomeration of genetic predispositions and biological traits? Is it the conditioning that comes from adult guidance and intervention? How much of a person’s identity comes from memory and experience? With what qualities are people born? These questions thread throughout Vanishing Acts as Delia and the other characters navigate unfamiliar territory and challenges to their concept of self.

While most of the story sees the characters wrangle internally with their identity, Delia and Andrew must deal with the legal challenges of identity. Though Delia recognizes herself as Delia Hopkins, legally she remains Bethany Matthews. She wonders who she would be had she remained Bethany, leading to much teasing from Fitz. “‘Since when do you care what anyone thinks about you?’ Fitz says, ‘That’s the kind of crap I’d expect to hear from Bethany Matthews, not Delia Hopkins’” (79). Fitz and Delia list how Bethany would differ from Delia until Delia states, “Thank God I’m nothing like her” (80). At this point, Delia establishes that her identity is more than her legal name, but there are still many pieces that she needs to put back together.

Part of Delia’s identity is her search-and-rescue career. However, her parents disagree on what prompted this career path. For Andrew, Delia’s search for lost things was a genetic predisposition from her mother. He worked to constructively channel this trait, introducing Delia to a search-and-rescue team and encouraging her interest in that path. For Elise, this profession is a direct response to Delia’s kidnapping. Delia relies on her search-and-rescue skills when facing her most significant challenges. Despite not having fully trained Greta for desert searches, Delia still hunts for Ruthann and Sophie when they are lost. Her profession is too embedded into her sense of self for Delia to sit quietly on the sidelines.

Andrew, too, struggles with his legal identity. Charles Matthews was a doctor of chemistry with any number of career prospects. Andrew Hopkins started his career as a janitor, a job he got only because the senior center was desperate. Andrew worked his way to become the head of the senior center though that job is in jeopardy with his arrest. In prison, Andrew’s sense of self wholly changes. While he always knew that, when pushed, he could do unthinkable acts, such as kidnapping his daughter, the stress of surviving prison changes Andrew. The gentle man who raised Delia and, in some part, her two best friends, who dotes on his granddaughter, who cares for several senior citizens, is also a man who guides others on how to cook meth properly, fights viciously against several gang members, blinds a man’s eye with a makeshift blow dart, and hides a bullet and meth on his person. Andrew realizes this change: “Somewhere between the moment I entered this rec yard, and the moment I will leave it, I have turned myself into a person I vaguely recognize. Somebody desperate. Somebody capable of acts I never imagined, until driven to commit them” (269). Andrew perhaps has the best sense of identity in the story. He knows what he is capable of, both good and bad. Andrew acknowledges that he is a fighter, unwilling to accept what is happening around him. In the senior center and with his family, this makes him a caring, kind, dependable man. In prison, this makes him violent, crafty, and morally ambiguous. It is not so much that Andrew has changed but that his surroundings show the darker side of his character.

Both Fitz and Eric craft their identities around their memories. For both, many of these memories center around dysfunctional, addicted parents, with Delia and Andrew as a balm. Eric sees his alcohol addiction as an inevitability, a genetic inheritance from his mother. Fitz seeks to distance himself as far as possible from his parents’ example to the point where he refuses to seek out romantic relationships, knowing he is in love with Delia. Both men view their relationship with Delia as an inextricable part of their identity. When conflicts appear in the relationship, Eric soothes himself with alcohol, furthering the distance between the two. Fitz, in contrast, gives Delia whatever she asks. Neither is willing to lose her for fear of losing part of themselves.

Delia, in contrast, has very few memories before age four, which causes her to question her identity throughout the story. What few memories she does have are false or fantasies constructed from pictures. When she arrives in Arizona, several memories return to her, helping her realize the reasons behind some of her behavior. For example, Delia hates the smell of alcohol but never understood why until she discovered her mother’s alcohol addiction. Likewise, Delia is unreasonably terrified of spiders and discovers this is due to a near-fatal scorpion bite. Delia questions which memories are real and how they may have unconsciously affected her. This sudden flood of information forces Delia to reevaluate everything about herself. At the end of the story, she is still trying to come to terms with her identity.

Picoult offers a plethora of the diverse methods through which self-identity forms. These instances range from Eric, whose sense of self is intertwined with genetics, to Fitz, who endeavors to construct an identity contrasting with his parents. Meanwhile, Delia’s absent memories continue to influence her actions, and Andrew recognizes the transformative impact of varying circumstances on an individual. Vanishing Acts offers ample backing for the nature versus nurture debate within psychology. Nevertheless, all the characters affirm that self-identity is constantly in flux. As understanding and encounters evolve, the characters’ perception of self also transforms.

Multiple characters in Vanishing Acts are magicians, professional liars who weave deception and misdirection to make the impossible seem real. This “magic” is primarily harmless and generally serves as entertainment or bonding opportunities for the characters. However, the characters use the same tactics found in magic shows and apply them to their daily lives to hide, diffuse conflict, and protect themselves, actions that create a story where the reader can view nothing as “true” and no narrator is reliable.

Delia is six when she first sees the truth behind “magic.” The narrative explains: “Being the magician’s assistant means coming face-to-face with illusion […] That people don’t vanish into thin air; that when you can’t find someone, it’s because you’ve been misdirected to look elsewhere” (1-2). While Delia believes her stint as a magician’s assistant is the first time she disappeared; the truth is that her first disappearance occurred at age four. Coincidentally, Andrew caused her to disappear at that time, as well. In both cases, he uses a skillful combination of misdirection and lies to create the illusion that he and Delia have disappeared. Andrew buys them new identities stolen from car crash victims. Andrew lies that Delia’s mother is dead, that her medical records are missing, and that he has previous employment experience several towns over. Andrew recalls: “I told so many lies that I honestly started to believe them, because it was easier to play the game than try to sort them all out in my head […] You can fool yourself, you know. You’d think it’s impossible, but it turns out it’s the easiest thing of all” (156). Even a lie detector cannot pick on untruths if the person who is lying believes them. To add to the misdirection, Andrew works as a city councilman because “no one ever looks twice at someone who acts like he has nothing to hide” (64). All this crafts the illusion that Andrew and Delia are different people. Delia plays into this illusion because she has no memory of her life before.

Andrew uses misdirection to avoid Delia’s questions about her past and to continue the illusion. He hides Delia’s baby photos and the pictures of Elise, claiming that it caused too much stress on both to have them out. When Delia asks about a lemon tree, Andrew acts shocked and casually pulls out Elise’s pearl necklace—distracting Delia from her initial goal. While Andrew’s goal is to protect Delia, his constant lies strain their relationship.

Beyond the apparent illusion of Andrew and Delia’s fake identities, the side characters also create and perpetuate their illusions. Eric is perhaps the most prolific liar in the book. He even admits this, to some point:

I have been fooling everyone for years. Sure, I’ve given up alcohol, but that was nothing compared to my other addiction. Love is the most dangerous craving of all, if you ask me. It turns us into people we aren’t. It makes us feel like hell, and it makes us walk on water. It ruins us for anything else (139).

To keep Delia, Eric lies constantly. He is always fine, and everything is under control. Eric is drowning and so stressed that he breaks his five-year sobriety. He lies about that, too. Eric hides his whiskey bottles and refuses to talk to Delia to cover up his drinking. When Eric quits as Andrew’s attorney, he tells Delia about Fitz’s article to avoid her questions. When she asks directly, Eric tells Delia nothing is wrong. He works hard to maintain the illusion that everything is fine, but the cracks are too deep to hide for long.

Fitz is the most honest character in the story, but even he lies to maintain his illusions. First, he lies to his editor about his assignment. Then, Fitz manufactures an article without doing any research. This illusion cannot last for long, and he loses his job. The biggest illusion, however, is that his actions are to help a friend and not because he is in love with Delia. Fitz lies and convinces himself that Delia is better off with Eric. Fitz started their relationship and wrote the words that Delia held on to so tightly, yet they were another illusion between the two. This illusion continues at the end of the story:

We sit for a few more moments, although there’s really nothing left to say. This is new to me, too, an entire conversation that takes place in silence, because the heart has its own language. I will remember what Eric says even though he doesn’t say a word. I will tell it to her (519).

Fitz is essentially putting words in Eric’s mouth that he intends to share later. Fitz convinces himself that this is a conversation, but the reader never sees this interaction from Eric’s side.

The biggest illusion throughout this story, however, is that “it was easier to hide the truth than to hurt [Delia]” (327). Perhaps it is easier on the men in Vanishing Acts, but it is not easier at all on Delia. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Delia asks Fitz, who replies, “Why don’t any of us tell you anything? […] We love you” (491). This love makes telling Delia the truth painful to those around her, so they hide information and misdirect Delia. They delude themselves that their dishonesty is in her best interest, another illusion the characters work hard to perpetuate.

Vanishing Acts is a story based on lies. There are few honest characters throughout the story, to the point that even Delia comments that “everyone is a liar […] recollections are in the eye of the beholder, no two held up side by side will ever quite match” (497). Beyond the lies, the lengths the characters go to protect these lies are extraordinary. Moreover, most characters comment on how easy it is to convince oneself of lies. All these factors combine to create a story where no one is believable or trustworthy and everything is ambiguous.