47 pages • 1 hour read
Tessa BaileyWreck the Halls: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Navigating and Repairing Fraught Familial Relationships
The novel explores the complexities of healing one’s family relationships in adulthood via Melody Gallard’s and Beat Dawkins’s attempts to remedy their fraught parental dynamics. In the narrative present, Melody and Beat are both 30 years old. Although they are independent adults, they still have trouble claiming their autonomy beyond the context of their families. This is particularly true because their mothers, Trina Gallard and Octavia Dawkins, are “America’s most legendary female rock duo, Steel Birds” (2). Throughout their lives, Melody and Beat have lived in Trina’s and Octavia’s proverbial shadows and have, therefore, had to cater their personal needs and desires to their mothers’ needs and desires. For Melody, this has meant adjusting to Trina’s frequent absences and living without a supportive, reliable maternal figure. She knows that Trina is talented, energetic, and free-spirited but often feels as if Trina doesn’t see her. When Trina visits Melody once a year in New York, the visit is “a whirlwind and [Melody] barely get[s] a word edgewise with her” (49). In the narrative present, Trina’s maternal absence continues to weigh on Melody, particularly because she doesn’t have a father figure or any siblings. Without a strong familial base, she often feels lonely and helpless.
For Beat, growing up with Octavia and Rudy Dawkins has taught him how to repress his needs to protect his parents. Indeed, denying himself healthy relationships and a balanced personal life has been Beat’s way of protecting his mother’s untarnished reputation. He also gives in to Fletcher Carr’s blackmailing demands because he’s afraid that the “truth [will] devastate his father,” Rudy (12). In these ways, both Beat and Melody have distant relationships with their parents. They want familial closeness but struggle to foster this intimacy without overstepping the hard relational barriers established in their youth. The novel uses these dynamics to capture the difficulty of creating healthy boundaries and exercising one’s voice in adult familial relationships.
Throughout the novel, Beat and Melody learn how to speak up for themselves and to heal the fraught dynamics in their families. For Beat, this means revealing the truth about Fletcher to Octavia and Rudy. For Melody, this means confronting Trina about the ways she’s let her down. Once the protagonists can have these difficult conversations, they make room for reconciliation with their parents. In turn, once Beat and Melody heal their family relationships, they can better pursue healthy friendships and romantic connections in their lives. These complex interpersonal dynamics, which are resolved by the novel’s end, underscore how balanced family relationships can beget more balanced personal connections.
The Complexities of Love Under the Spotlight
Melody and Beat’s fast-paced romance captures and conveys how fame and media attention can complicate the individual’s ability to pursue romantic and sexual relationships. Melody and Beat are the “children of legends” and therefore received a wealth of paparazzi attention throughout their childhoods and comings of age (2). This media attention only grows once the protagonists agree to work with Applause Network to reunite their mothers’ band, Steel Birds. Throughout the weeks leading up to Christmas Eve, the characters’ deep attraction to one another grows. However, because the entirety of their romance is playing out on a live stream in front of millions of viewers, Melody and Beat often struggle to express themselves in authentic, honest ways and to build trust. Both characters believe that there is “something deeper and more meaningful” between them than they have experienced before (115); however, the spotlight complicates their ability to explore their special bond without embarrassment or shame. This is particularly true because they are forced to perform public personas for their fans. They are also constantly wearing microphones and being followed by cameramen. Their evolving romance is playing out on screen as if it’s a scripted movie. The publicization of their relationship challenges the characters’ ability to open up and be vulnerable with one another.
Melody and Beat gradually learn how to develop their romance in private to establish a healthy, sustainable dynamic between them. Throughout the novel, the narrator repeatedly depicts them in insular, private spaces. These more familiar, intimate settings grant the characters the chance to be alone together and to take advantage of their limited privacy. Throughout most of their burgeoning romance, Melody and Beat’s every action is broadcast live to millions of viewers. This viewership exposes Melody and Beat to public commentary, ridicule, and scrutiny. While most of the viewers support Melody and Beat’s relationship and push for them to start a relationship, this media attention doesn’t allow them the space to get to know one another one-on-one. This is why their time at one another’s apartments and away from the cameras is crucial to deepening their connection. In these settings, the characters can speak honestly and can connect emotionally and sexually. These settings also let them “keep the most intimate parts” of themselves for each other instead of for the world (181). The shifts between public and private settings throughout the narrative capture Melody and Beat’s work to balance their public and private personas. By the novel’s end, they learn how to navigate between these contrasting realms more fluidly. In turn, they’re able to trust one another because of the private work they’ve done, which helps them survive living in the spotlight.
The Journey Toward Self-Discovery and Personal Growth
The novel uses Melody’s and Beat’s character evolutions to highlight the path toward growing and developing as an adult. Neither Melody nor Beat is in a traditional coming-of-age phase of life. They’re both 30 years old and living in New York City in their own apartments. Their mothers have provided their housing and continue to pay them allowances, which makes Melody and Beat materially stable. However, both protagonists have emotional growth they need to accomplish throughout the novel. Melody’s character is intelligent and independent, but she often “feel[s] alone whether she [is] with people or not” (25). She enjoys restoring books and playing bocce with her friends but struggles to claim her identity or speak “with any kind of authority” (24). Throughout the novel, Melody takes gradual steps to claim her distinct and individual sense of self and to exercise agency over her life. To do so, Melody takes risks. She agrees to the “Wreck the Halls” live stream, gets involved with Beat, visits her mother without warning, stands up to Trina, and boldly faces the media attention that once scared her. By the end of the novel, she knows that she’s still timid and afraid of external attention, but her experiences “over the past week” have helped her to climb “a rung on some invisible ladder toward self-acceptance” (246). The metaphor of the ladder in this moment underscores that personal growth is a gradual, step-by-step journey. This journey can last many years and is not limited to the individual’s childhood or adolescence.
For Beat, growing and changing means letting go of his guilt and shame and facing the truth of who he is. For years, Beat has been punishing himself for living a privileged life. He’s not only denied himself sexual pleasure and romantic connection but has kept a wide distance between himself and his friends. Falling in love with Melody and participating in “Wreck the Halls” gradually teaches him that the “pattern of behavior [he] adopted at sixteen [is] no longer right for him” (257). He learns that refusing to let others into his life precludes intimacy and augments his isolation. Like Melody, he takes small steps toward rearranging these behavioral patterns and claiming who he is without fear. By the novel’s end, both he and Melody have grown and changed. In turn, the independent work they’ve done to grow as individuals allows them to participate in more balanced, sustainable relationships with each other, their friends, and their families. The novel, therefore, demonstrates that growing and developing as an adult is essential to mental, physical, and emotional well-being.
Related Titles
By Tessa Bailey
