Previous
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in When Will There Be Good News?, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma, Survival, and Reckoning with the Past
Appearances vs. Reality
Lies and Deceptions
Family
Summary
Analysis
Reggie is sitting at Ms. MacDonald’s, eating violet creams she found in the kitchen while watching Coronation Street with The Iliad open in her lap. Reggie hears a train approaching, but its rumbling sounds unusual, almost as if it’s going to crash through the house, followed by a bang. She instinctively jumps to her feet. She hears people running out of their houses, and when she looks outside, a neighbor tells her a train has crashed. Reggie dials 999, not wanting to be “that person who presumed” that someone else would do it. She grabs a flashlight and tells Banjo she’ll be back soon. “The world wasn’t going to end this night […] if Reggie had anything to do with it.”
Despite being emotionally older than her years, Reggie is very much a teenager as well, distracted by a soap opera even as she works on her classical Greek translation. The train crash disrupts this cozy scene, and Reggie immediately snaps into action. She, like Jackson and Louise, has an instinctive drive to help people. She takes initiative to get help and also heads out to do what she can for the victims herself. Reggie’s experiences of survival have inclined her to want to help others instead of withdrawing or running.
Themes
