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Part 1, Chapter 17
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory and Meaning
Love and Vulnerability
Freedom
Art, Creativity, and Expression
Wonder and Knowledge
Summary
Analysis
New York City. March 12, 2014. Henry Strauss returns to the bookstore. Emily (Henry thinks her name is Emily) asks Henry if he’d like to grab drinks sometime, but he politely declines. After Emily leaves, Henry’s friend Bea asks Henry why he didn’t at least get Emily’s number. For the most part, though, Bea doesn’t nag Henry about finding someone new anymore. And she’s agreed not to mention Tabitha.
Henry’s refusal to accept Emily’s offer to go out for drinks, combined with Bea’s delicate agreement not to mention someone named Tabitha, suggests that Henry is suffering from heartache, presumably over someone named Tabitha.
Themes
The Last Word closes at 6:00. Henry doesn’t own the bookstore, but he might as well: Meredith, its owner, is always travelling. Henry started working at The Last Word five years ago, back when he was still a graduate student in theology. Henry knows he should get a second job (the bookstore doesn’t pay much, and he can practically hear his older brother David complaining that the job doesn’t “lead” anywhere), but Henry loves the store. Plus, he doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life. Bea thinks people who work in bookstores really want to be writers. Though Henry likes writing, he can never settle on a story.
This section introduces the reader to Henry’s personality, as well as some of his struggles. He appears to be rather aimless, confused about what he wants out of life, and anxious about his family (and likely the broader world) feeling that he’s a failure or underperforming in one way or another. Addie resented her lack of freedom, and Henry seems to have the opposite problem: he feels overwhelmed by all he can do with his life and doesn’t want to waste his time doing the wrong thing.
Themes
Henry and Bea close the shop and head to Robbie’s off-off-Broadway show, which is a loose adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Henry and Bea meet Robbie and an actress wearing a bohemian dress in the lobby. The actress paints some gold dust onto Henry’s cheeks and says he looks “perfect.” The word bothers Henry. Henry asks Bea if she thinks he’s perfect. Bea laughs and says, “God, no.”
It's strange that Henry reacts so adversely to the actress calling him “perfect.” Recall, too, how Henry earlier declined the other woman’s invitation to get drinks. It seems that he’s put off by others’ attention, or, perhaps, still grieving the still-mysterious Tabitha.
Themes
Bea and Henry find their seats. There’s an empty spot where Tabitha would have sat, which depresses Henry. The play begins. Robbie walks to the center of the stage to deliver the opening monologue, and it’s easy to see how Henry fell in love with him when they were 19. The play ends with Robbie standing beneath a sheet of rain that rinses the gold glitter from his head, “erasing all traces of magic,” and making him appear “vulnerable” and human. It disturbs Henry.
This scene confirms that Henry is still reeling over Tabitha, though it’s still unclear who she was to him and how she hurt him. The reader also learns a bit more about Henry’s love life with his admission about falling in love with Robbie some years before—though clearly, they’re not still together. These details suggest that heartbreak and rejection are a significant part of Henry’s past and present. Finally, this scene also foregrounds the idea that “vulnerab[ility]” and magic are opposing forces, something the novel has previously explored through Addie’s interactions with the darkness/the stranger.
Themes
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Robbie meets Bea and Henry in the lobby after the show. Henry tells Robbie he was great, and he means it. Then he runs his fingers through Robbie’s hair, and when Robbie reciprocates Henry’s touch, Henry must remind himself that “it is not real, not anymore.”
Robbie’s response to Henry’s gesture of affection suggests that Robbie, too, has lingering feelings for Henry—it’s strange, then, that Henry would think that these feelings are “not real, not anymore.” Clearly, there’s something strange going on with Henry’s life—and his love life specifically—that the reader has yet to understand.
Themes
It’s almost midnight, and Henry and the others are in a dimly lit apartment in SoHo for the after-party. The place is packed. Bea and Henry don’t care for raucous parties and hunker down in a corner until another actress takes Bea away. Later, a blond actress approaches Henry and asks him to dance with her. The girl is beautiful, with blonde hair, blue eyes, and red lips. Henry wants to enjoy spending time with the girl, but he “feel[s] a storm creeping in.” He was 12 when clouds first formed above him, and it would be many years before he learned to see these clouds as storms. Henry’s family tried to be there, but their advice that things would get better wasn’t too helpful.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it’s what’s on the inside that counts, of course, but Henry hardly seems like the irresistible hunk-type that many women (and men) would be so helplessly attracted to. Once more, the novel implies that something strange—and maybe even supernatural—is going on with Henry. Perhaps this strangeness might even explain why Henry (and nobody else) seems able to remember Addie. Finally, this section offers more insight into Henry’s personality; the reader learns here that he has a history of deep sadness that nobody in his life can quite understand, and this aspect of his personality has made him feel vulnerable and alienated from the broader world.
Themes
Henry is about to leave when the actress who painted his face in the lobby approaches him. She pleads with Henry not to leave, pulling him close. They kiss, but Henry can see “the pale clouds sweeping through her vision.” Then the actress pulls Henry into the nearest bedroom. In the dark, Henry can’t see her eyes, and he can almost believe that this is real.
It's very strange, and possibly even magical, that “pale clouds” appear in the actress’s eyes the moment she and Henry kiss. Does Henry have some magical power over people? Is it even possible that he, like Addie, has made a deal with the darkness?
Themes
