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Chapter 24: Brendan Espinoza
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Restart, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Identity, Memory, and Responsibility
Reputation vs. Reality
Masculinity
Social Hierarchies and Bullying
Loyalty
Summary
Analysis
When Chase receives Brendan’s text, he’s confused about what Brendan could have to show him, but he decides to go anyway. He’d like to laugh at one of Brendan’s videos; right now, he’s miserable because he’s learned he’s a “criminal” in addition to having an overbearing father (Frank) and nasty friends (Aaron and Bear). He’s terrified that, due to his amnesia, he won’t be able to find the Medal of Honor and give it back to Mr. Solway before Mr. Solway dies.
To take responsibility and make amends for his theft, Chase wants to give the Medal of Honor back to Mr. Solway: this is the only way to bring his present self into alignment with the person he wants to be. Ironically, though, Chase can’t make amends because he can’t remember where he put the medal, a detail emphasizing that memory is important not only to understanding oneself but to taking responsibility for one’s past behavior.
Themes
The idea of going to Brendan’s house is a little hurtful for Chase. He worries that the video club’s quick judgment about his return to bullying means they were never really his friends. Yet he’s glad Brendan has resumed contact with him. As he leaves his own house for Brendan’s, he sees that his neighbors are moving—and, to his shock, two movers are carrying a painting that represents the little blond girl from his first memory. He realizes that he was remembering a painting, not a person.
Although Chase doesn’t have the same rigid views on loyalty and friendship that Aaron does, he still worries that the members of the video club were never really his friends if they reverted to distrusting him at the first sign he might have done something wrong—a natural worry for an adolescent to have. Then, suddenly, the little blond girl from Chase’s first post-accident memory appears, though the significance of her being a character in a painting is not yet clear.
Themes
Chase runs to his neighbor, Mrs. Tottenham, and asks whether she ever showed him the painting. She says no and points to the upstairs solarium where the painting used to hang. Chase realizes that he must have seen the painting through the solarium window while sitting on his own roof. He runs back into his own house, goes upstairs, and climbs out onto the roof. He inches to the highest point, trying to find the place from which he saw the painting. Though he does find it, it doesn’t trigger any memories. Climbing back down, however, he catches sight of Mr. Solway’s medal stuffed behind a “loose shake.”
Chase finds Mr. Solway’s medal while trying to determine where he saw the little blond girl, the content of his only memory. This apparent coincidence suggests that Mr. Solway’s medal is somehow centrally important to Chase’s loss of memory and identity, though readers don’t yet know how.
Themes
Suddenly, Chase remembers his accident: he had just hidden the medal and was laughing at his overweight neighbor Mr. Tottenham doing yoga in spandex in the solarium. He tried to sneak a phone picture of Mr. Tottenham, lost his balance, and slid off the roof. Defeatedly, Chase wonders whether he would have just shown the photo to Aaron and Bear or spread it all over the internet. He feels “grateful” he’s not that person anymore. Medal in hand, Chase climbs back into his house. He blasts past Tina (who’s yelling at him for climbing on the roof), yells over his shoulder that he’s headed to the assisted living facility, and runs off to return the medal to Mr. Solway.
Chase fell off the roof and lost his memory while hiding Mr. Solway’s medal and trying to harvest material with which he could cyberbully his neighbor. This revelation suggests that, according to the novel’s internal logic, Chase lost his memories and identity as comeuppance for stealing Mr. Solway’s “identity” (that is, the medal symbolizing his good reputation) and bullying. It is only by taking responsibility and making amends—returning the medal to its rightful owner—that Chase can start becoming the better person he has realized he wants to be.
Themes
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