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Part 4, Chapter 9
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. September 13, 2013. Henry loves his family, but he doesn’t relate to them, and he doesn’t like who he is around them. Yet, he still finds himself driving north to see them. As Henry nears his parents’ home in Newburgh, his apprehension grows. Strauss family dinners are always stressful. Henry knows how dinner will go: Henry’s father and David will talk about medicine as Henry’s mother and Muriel will talk about art. Henry, meanwhile, will have nothing to contribute.
Henry has never liked his family dinners because his family’s judgment, which is beyond his ability control, has always left him feeling emotionally vulnerable and inadequate. But given how virtually everyone else’s attitude toward Henry has changed after Henry made his deal with Luc, it’s likely that this family dinner will be quite different than past dinners.
Themes
Henry is surprised when Henry’s father greets him with a smile, his eyes “threaded with fog.” David and Muriel greet Henry uncharacteristically warmly, too. Nobody criticizes his weight, clothing, or lack of career. Nobody mentions Tabitha. Henry feels like he’s in an alternate reality. Over dinner, everyone listens to everything he has to say with the utmost attention. Henry tells them about Dean Melrose’s proposition, and everyone agrees that Henry would be a great fit for the job. Later, when Henry retreats to the kitchen to help Henry’s mother with the dishes, she says she’s sorry that Henry “wasted so much time on [Tabitha].” Then she tells Henry to go fetch Muriel for dessert.
Just as the reader may have guessed, Henry’s deal with Luc has caused Henry’s family to become suddenly—and involuntarily—overly supportive and admiring of Henry. But, still reeling from his recent breakup with Tabitha, Henry allows himself to disregard the fact that the affection his family is showing him now is not really genuine. He just wants to be loved and comforted, and he has yet to critically examine the reality that all human relationships are a two-way street: they rely on two people choosing to open themselves up to one another, and choosing to entertain the possibility that that openness leaves them vulnerable to heartbreak, misunderstanding, and disappointment.
Themes
Henry finds Muriel smoking a joint on the porch swing out back. They share the joint and chat. Muriel asks why they don’t hang out more often; she might be busy, she explains, but she’ll always have time for her brother. Then they go back inside for dessert, and things are just as pleasant as they were before. When Henry gets up to leave, everyone hugs him goodbye and tells him again how proud they are.
On the surface, Henry’s deal with Luc seems only to have improved his life: it’s giving him the opportunity to grow closer to his sister, whom, this scene implies, he rarely interacted with prior to the deal. But this surface-level examination of Henry’s new reality assumes that a person can make others care about them—that a person’s love can be meaningful if it’s not something they voluntarily give.
Themes
