“I will give you the same vaguely cheery, deeply oversimplified answer that we always gave everyone: Just under ten years ago, my father had ‘a camping accident.’ […] That’s the long story short. I’m leaving out a lot here. I’m leaving out the worst part, in fact. But that’s enough for now.”

Here, Emma first explains her father’s condition and why she is acting as his caregiver. Throughout the novel, Emma relays equally vague messages to her readers about the incident until she finally tells the full story in Chapter 12. This quote reflects the major theme of Selective Truth Telling as it shows how Emma knowingly shapes the narrative to avoid thinking about the most painful parts of the camping accident.

“Real life was allowed to be disappointing. Heck, real life was guaranteed to be disappointing. Living alone in a tiny apartment with my sick father? Teaching community college freshman English so we could have health insurance? Denying my own dreams so my overindulged but lovable baby sister could live all of hers struggle-free? All fine. I didn’t get to make the rules for reality. But stories had a better option.”

Though Emma does not try to change her life at all in the early chapters, knowing it is her duty to do all of the above, she does recognize how much her role as a caregiver is holding her back and how she struggles with Balancing Caregiving and Self-Care. This passage also emphasizes Emma’s interest in storytelling, which she uses as a form of escapism. Her deep connection to stories highlights just why she later refuses to do work that is not meaningful to her.

“How did he do it? How did he stand beside a personal Grand Canyon of suffering and manage to feel…grateful? And how on earth would I cope out in the heartless world without him? Who even was I on my own?”

Emma characterizes her father as almost irrationally optimistic, yet she still is in awe of him. This positivity is her father’s defining characteristic, and it shapes the way Emma views her own grief compared to his.