The School Story

Natalie’s book The Cheater works as a motif to develop The Effects of Loss theme. The connection between Natalie’s love of reading and writing and her love for her late father is established in Chapter 2. As a toddler, Natalie “loved it when her mom or dad read to her” (8-9). Natalie’s love for reading comes from her parents, “who loved good books almost as much as they loved her” (9). Natalie’s love for writing develops from her love for reading, creating a connection between her parents’ influence and her talent for writing. After her father’s death, Natalie creates a workspace for herself, using “her dad’s old red desk chair and […] his old Macintosh computer” because “it was as close as Natalie could get to her dad” (12).

After Chapter 2 establishes the connection between Natalie’s writing and her dad, the contents of Natalie’s book become an important motif to communicate the way Natalie is still grieving her father. Zoe, who is the first person to read Natalie’s book, notices the way Natalie explores father-daughter relationships as a means of working through her own feelings about her father’s death. Zoe observes that the main character’s father is the hero of the story. She knows that at the heart of the book “[i]t was about a girl and her dad” (55). She believes “[t]he book was like a good-bye poem from Natalie to her father” (55), which keeps Zoe motivated to see their plan through to the end and get the book published.

Zoe isn’t the only one to notice the link between the book’s contents and the loss of Natalie’s dad. After Hannah tells Natalie all about the new manuscript she’s read, unaware that it’s Natalie’s own manuscript, she “wished she hadn’t said anything to Natalie about the book. Because the strongest section of the book was the part about this girl and her dad” (110-11). Hannah goes on to worry about Natalie because “she didn’t seem to need to talk about not having a dad, but maybe that was a problem” (111). Without knowing that Natalie has written the manuscript in question, Hannah relates the relationship between the main character and her father to her daughter’s grief. Hannah’s concern that Natalie doesn’t talk about her father conveys the idea that Natalie uses writing to process her grief rather than talking, further solidifying Natalie’s book as a motif for The Effects of Loss.

In the final chapter, Natalie and her mother discuss this link face-to-face. Having revealed her identity as the author of The Cheater, Hannah explains how she was worried about telling Natalie about the book because she “thought those sections [about the girl and her father] might be too hard for you” (189). Natalie confirms that “Those parts were hard to write. But I wanted to remember Daddy. I wanted to feel what it would be like if he was still here. I don’t want to forget about him, not ever” (189). By putting her feelings about her late father into her writing, Natalie finds a way to process some of her grief about not having him around, making Natalie’s book a motif that communicates how loss of a loved one can affect people.