Female Friendship Theme Analysis

In Catching Teller Crow, all positive relationships are important—but friendships between girls are particularly meaningful, because they help vulnerable young women fight back against gendered violence. The novel’s main villains, Alexander Sholt and Derek Bell, have been kidnapping, abusing, and murdering girls in the same small Australian town for about 20 years. They are finally stopped when their last victim, Isobel Catching, befriends the ghost of their first victim, Sarah Blue/Crow. Catching’s influence helps Crow interact with the physical world, while Crow’s support helps Catching stay emotionally resilient and ready to fight in the face of Alexander and Derek’s horrific abuse. Eventually, Catching and Crow escape—and Crow kills Alexander and Derek.

Female friendship not only stops Alexander and Derek’s abuse and murder of vulnerable girls; it also brings Alexander and Derek’s crimes to the attention of police officers who intend to bring Alexander and Derek’s accomplices to justice. Sarah Blue/Crow’s childhood best friend, Allie Hartley, has become a police officer as an adult; readers can infer that Allie joined her hometown’s police force at least partly because she wanted to solve the mystery of her friend’s disappearance. When a government oversight program for homicide cases brings seasoned detective Michael Teller to town after Alexander’s murder, Allie asks him to look into Sarah Blue’s long-ago disappearance too. Meanwhile, Catching has been befriending the ghost of Michael’s daughter, Beth Teller; Allie’s devotion to Sarah and Beth’s new friendship with Catching yield information that eventually leads Michael to discover where Alexander and Derek likely buried the girls they killed and who likely helped them hide their crimes. As the novel ends, Michael and Allie are planning to find the bodies and pursue the accomplices. Thus, the strong female friendships between Catching and Sarah Blue/Crow, Sarah Blue/Crow and Allie, and Beth and Catching are ultimately instrumental in ending a cycle of violence against girls and in bringing those responsible to justice. Indeed, the novel suggests that female friendship is an incredibly potent force for building solidarity, speaking truth, and fighting for justice in the world more broadly.