Stuck In Neutral

Sydney is Shawn’s estranged father. Sydney could not handle the emotional strain of caring for Shawn, and so he left the family when Shawn was four and divorced Linda. Sydney is also a Pulitzer-Prize-winning author, who wrote a poem about Shawn’s condition and their relationship, becoming famous. Shawn often does not know how to feel about his father, especially regarding Shawn’s mother and sister’s conflicted feelings towards Sydney and Paul’s revulsion of him

In ways Dad is nothing like he appears to be on all those TV talk shows, and in other ways he’s exactly like he seems on them, sincere and smart and compassionate. The truth is that my dad is a complete jerk and a great guy: He is ugly and handsome, charming and cruel, funny and angry. My dad is your basic, slightly smarter than most, human being. He comes fully equipped with a lot of the best and worst stuff available on most models (23).

Sydney personifies uncertainty within the novel. No one ever seems certain on how he will react to things, and he often does not know himself what he does or thinks. He does not know what course of action to take regarding whether he should kill Shawn, which creates more uncertainty for other characters, including Shawn, within the novel.

Sydney feels trapped within the novel, as evidenced by his repeated usage of the word “trapped.” A selfish man, he assumes that other people feel the same way he does about Shawn, especially that Shawn is trapped within his body. In some ways, Sydney seems to think that he is responsible for Shawn’s condition, further feeling trapped as a result. Shawn implies that at one point, Sydney either tried to or thought about committing suicide, but could not go through with it, leaving himself again trapped by, and in, reality. Many of Sydney’s issues seem to revolve around how selfish he is as a person. He is unable to think of people outside of himself, and as such he feels trapped by the needs of other people. However, he tries to fight this aspect of himself by doing something which he believes to be selfless: namely, putting his son out of his misery by killing him. However, in thinking of this as the best possible option, Sydney becomes paralyzed by his own uncertainty and inaction. In this way, Sydney becomes much like Shawn, who is also in a kind of limbo. There are many parallels between Sydney and Shawn, as well as between Sydney and Detraux and Sydney and Paul. All of the male characters within the novel are intertwined through the common narrative of struggle.

Earl Detraux is the personification of conflict within the novel, even though Shawn never meets him. Earl exists in the narrative’s periphery as a constant source of tension between the other characters and a source of anxiety for Shawn. Even though Detraux looks like Mr. Average, “Earl Detraux is a hero to a lot of people. His son had a terrible seizure condition and was retarded. Earl…was charged with killing his son, he pled guilty” (66). While Sydney admires Detraux, other characters, like Cindy, believe him to be a monster. Shawn himself is conflicted over Detraux: on the one hand, he believes that Detraux truly loved his son and did what he thought was best for him, but on the other, Shawn worries that Detraux has inspired his father to kill Shawn.

Shawn demonstrates the similarities between Detraux and his father, which only seem to heighten his anxiety. In many ways, Detraux serves as a foil to Sydney: selfless where Sydney is selfish, uneducated where Sydney is highly educated and intelligent, infamous for being a child murderer where Sydney is famous for being a victim, an active agent whereas Sydney is paralyzed by inactivity and doubt. Detraux only speaks once within the narrative—during Sydney’s recorded interview with him in prison, which is broadcast on the Alice Ponds Show—but is nevertheless an integral character within the novel. In many ways, Detraux represents what Sydney wishes he could be, even though it would mean that Sydney would become reviled and probably lose his freedom. 

Paul is Shawn’s sixteen-year-old brother and is everything that Shawn is not: highly athletic, volatile, and angry most of the time. He and Sydney have a contentious relationship since Sydney left the family almost a decade before the narrative begins, and Paul resents Sydney for abandoning the family. Even though the father and son sometimes have a few months of peaceful interaction, they mostly refuse to speak to one another, as they are both quite stubborn individuals. Similarly, Paul hates Shawn’s “seizures almost as much as my dad hates them” (33), strengthening the congruence of personalities between the two characters.

Paul also has a rebellious streak to him: he is constantly getting in trouble for staying out too late and doing things that he knows are against the rules, including feeding Shawn treats that he is not supposed to have:

Noticing that Mom’s attention is glued to the TV screen, Paul pops a tiny piece of chip into my mouth as he walks past. As he does this, he looks at me and smiles, then gives me a wink. Mom hates for him to feed me anything without my bib on, because it’s a saliva free-flow disaster, but when he sees a chance to do it, Paul often sneaks me treats anyway. I truly love him for it (70).

Paul is impishly disobedient in the prototypical way of teenagers, a quality that Shawn both loves and respects. However, Shawn also fears Paul, much like he fears his father, especially when Paul beats up the two larger boys who were picking on Shawn: “I never loved and feared Paul more in that moment” (91). Paul is highly protective of his brother and shows fierce loyalty to his family; this violently protective aspect of Paul is reminiscent of Sydney’s own belief that killing Shawn is the best method of protecting him from the supposed pain of his seizures. In this way, Paul is a younger, more volatile version of his father.

Linda is Shawn’s forty-five-year-old mother who is the embodiment of maternal patience and sacrifice. Even though she has a part-time job to cover some of the family’s expenses, she spends all of her free time caring for Shawn, whom she treats like a baby:“If I had to name a single reason why I’ve been as happy as I’ve been, I know that it would be my certainty of my Mom’s love for me, love that’s absolute, rock solid” (61). Linda is very empathetic and highly protective of Shawn, feeding Shawn almost every meal he’s ever eaten. She’s “a naturally positive and cheerful person” (62), but she is not naïve, especially when it comes to Sydney. More than anyone except for Shawn, Linda understands Sydney’s limitations but also knows how hard the situation has been for Sydney and works to keep the peace within her family. Other than her role as Shawn’s caregiver and family peacekeeper, Linda is a fairly two-dimensional character, only existing in relation to the main male characters within the story. She does not really have a personality outside of caring for her family, and she acts only in accordance with this tenet.