Fever Dream

Carla, David’s mother, befriends Amanda shortly after her arrival. Amanda estimates that Carla is a decade older than her, but she thinks the other woman is “much more beautiful” (7). At their first meeting, Amanda is sure Carla is from out of town because she looks “so sophisticated […] so different and foreign from everything around her” (31). She wears her hair in a large bun and dresses in colorful blouses and a glamorous gold bikini with straps that sometimes slip off her shoulders. Her sexuality is undeniable, and there is nothing maternal in her presentation. In contrast to Carla, Amanda’s appearance is never described in the text. This is partially because the novel is told from Amanda’s point of view; however, it also speaks to both women’s characters and how they view motherhood.

Amanda has been swallowed up by her role as a mother, while Carla, whose son “doesn’t call [her] Mom anymore” (14), has renounced hers. The focus on her appearance emphasizes Carla’s position as the so-called bad mother. Even before David’s sickness, she tended to distraction and self-absorption. Carla started working at a neighboring farm, appreciating the “excuse for a little glamour” (11). She went around town “all dressed up” and dreamed of carpeting the house when Omar “hit it big” with his racehorses (11). The day the borrowed stallion escaped, Carla was supposed to be watching the horse, but she was inattentive: “I would just take a look out the kitchen window at him every once in a while” (13). The horse escapes on her watch, and she fails to protect David because her attention is focused on catching the stallion, thinking that losing the animal was “the worst” thing that could happen; it would spell financial disaster for her family.

In listening to Carla, Amanda wonders if the same thing could have happened to her and Nina. Because Carla’s story ends in tragedy, it’s easy to identify her maternal failings in allowing the horse to escape and not watching David as he played close to the contaminated stream. Even Carla seems to blame herself, saying, “Why the hell was I worrying about a goddamn horse instead of my son?” (18). David’s spots and strange behavior following his sickness are a constant reminder of Carla’s maternal failing. It’s possible that she refuses to accept her changed son because she cannot bear her perceived failure as a mother. However, Amanda, the constantly attentive, overly protective mother, loses her daughter in the exact same way, challenging the expectation that mothers can protect their children from every possible danger.

David is Carla’s son, a strange boy who is about nine years old. When he was three, he was exposed to contaminated water and suffered a poisoning episode that nearly killed him. Desperate, his mother took him to a local healer who performed a “migration,” sending part of David’s spirit away to live in another body along with some of the poison so the boy’s small body could survive. Although David is one of the novel’s central characters, not much is known about him because nearly everything is told through Carla or his conversation with Amanda. Furthermore, in this dialogue, it’s unclear if David is speaking or if he is Amanda’s hallucination. 

Outside of their feverish dialogue, David appears only twice in Amanda’s memories. After entering the rental house with Carla in search of Nina, Amanda sees him for the first time and describes him as “a normal, everyday boy” (63). His only visible abnormalities are the white spots on his skin and the fact that “the skin around [his] eyes and mouth is a little thinner than is normal, a little pinker” (65). Later, before she collapses and is returned to the hospital, Amanda sees David crossing the street with the group of “deformed children.” He is one of 33 children with illnesses or congenital disabilities who spend the day at the clinic because “it’s difficult to care for [them] at home” (156). Amanda thinks that David looks “more normal” than the other children, and he likewise insists that he is a “normal boy,” and that tales of the migration are just “stories [his] mother tells” (52).

Whether or not David is real or a figment of Amanda’s feverish imagination, his demeanor is not childlike. Throughout the novel, he guides Amanda, drawing attention to the important parts of her memories, offering clues as to what will happen later, and suggesting what themes are essential to the novel. He knows parts of her story that Amanda has forgotten and speaks with an authority that is disconcerting coming from a child. There are certain lines that David constantly repeats, telling Amanda what is “not important,” telling her to pay attention to the “worms,” and reminding her not to “get distracted” or “waste time.” This commanding, repetitive dialogue from a young boy’s mouth significantly contributes to the novel’s sinister, ominous atmosphere.

Nina is Amanda’s daughter, a happy, playful child. Amanda describes her as a girl “who isn’t fearful but is obedient” (44); she listens to her mother, and Amanda trusts her daughter enough to allow her some independence. She notes, for example, that Nina “knows how to wake up alone and wait for [her] calmly” if Amanda goes out while the girl is sleeping (56). She is curious, prone to running “cheerful laps around the house” (69), and is usually in the company of her beloved stuffed mole. Nina and her mother play a game where they “put on airs and speak to each other like rich nobility” (48); however, Nina is always perceptive enough to understand when she needs to sit quietly, be respectful, or be more mature.

As Amanda grows sicker, there is a hint of a role reversal between Nina and her mother. Walking through the clinic, Nina takes her mother’s hand and leads her forward while Amanda trusts “that she will instinctively know what to do” (133). Later, Nina wakes Amanda as she sleeps on Carla’s couch, and Amanda hears her daughter’s voice “like a command […] as if she’s just saved both [their] lives” (151). On the other hand, Amanda cannot do anything for Nina following the poisoning. Rather, Carla assumes responsibility for the girl, taking her to the green house where she undergoes the same mysterious treatment that saved David.