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Summary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in About a Boy, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Chosen Family
Coming of Age and Maturity
Alienation and Mental Illness
Identity, Pop Culture, and Fitting In
Summary
Analysis
After an argument one evening, Marcus’s mum breaks up with her boyfriend, Roger. Their sudden split, which occurs right after the trio orders pizza for dinner, confuses 12-year-old Marcus, who overhears the whole argument but doesn’t quite grasp its subtext. Marcus has noticed that his mother has appeared sad lately, but since she never talks to him about it, he wonders where it comes from. In his whole 12 years, Marcus has lived “two different sorts of life”: the life before his parents’ separation, and the life after.
The beginning of the novel introduces the reader to Marcus’s limited experience with adult relationships and interactions, signaling his naiveté. He watches his mum break up with her boyfriend and notices that she has recently been sadder than normal, but he doesn’t really understand whether the two are connected.
Themes
Since his parents’ split, Marcus’s mother has kept him in the dark about the details of her romantic life. The break-up itself never bothered Marcus much; if anything, it brought more change and excitement than when his family lived together in Cambridge. Having moved to London only a few weeks ago, Marcus notes that not much excitement has occurred yet, that he and his mum are mostly still “waiting for their London lives to begin.” As they eat the pizzas they ordered, Marcus searches for something to watch on TV, ultimately choosing a nature program about “a fish nobody could see the point of” over a soap opera in an effort to distract his mum from whatever was making her sad.
Though Marcus’s parents broke up long before the events of the novel, their separation remains a key component of his personal journey. He lives exclusively with his mum, who has a tendency toward depressiveness, while his mostly absent father resides with his girlfriend in Cambridge. Early on, hints that Marcus is somewhat accustomed to “parenting” his mother appear, such as his decision to watch a nature documentary with her rather than something more serious and dramatic, which might only remind her of her depression. At this point in the novel, Marcus and Fiona are effectively portrayed as one unit—a mother and son who have just begun a new life in a new city, with no idea what awaits them just around the corner.
Themes
