Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Catching Teller Crow, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Grief
Abuse of Power, Racism, and the Law
Storytelling and Truth
Time
Female Friendship
Summary
Analysis
Catching abruptly stops her story. Beth senses that Catching’s story is “true,” despite its unbelievable details; as a ghost, Beth is open to believing the unbelievable. Though Beth orders Michael to ask Catching to continue, Michael just tells Catching he’ll come back later. Beth, startled, looks at Catching and notices that telling the story has drained Catching. When Michael asks whether he can locate a relative on Catching’s behalf, Catching says no with a hostile expression: “I got somebody.”
Beth believes that Catching’s story is essentially “true,” but it isn’t yet clear whether she believes all the unlikely details or simply the story’s main gist. Michael’s decision to leave Catching alone for a while shows his sensitivity: clearly, Catching finds narrating her story difficult if not actively retraumatizing. Catching’s claim to have “somebody”—even though her mom died at the beginning of her story—may foreshadow the introduction of a character Beth and Michael have yet to meet.
Themes
As Michael and Beth leave, Beth sees Catching staring at her—but tells herself that Catching was staring “through” her. When Michael walks into the waiting room, the blond nurse asks about the interview—and the locals perk up. Michael says nothing about the interview but asks whether anyone has visited the witness. The nurse says no: the witness escaped from a “rehab clinic,” and child protective services located her mother very recently. The mother should come in a week to collect the girl.
Catching seems to be looking at Beth again—another hint that perhaps Catching can see Beth’s ghost. Meanwhile, the nurse’s claim that the witness was in a rehab clinic and her mother is coming to get her—even though, in Catching’s story, her mom died while they were taking a road trip together—may cast doubt on the literal truth of what Catching said.
Themes
As Michael walks to the parking lot, Beth asks how he can go when the hospital doesn’t even know that Catching’s mother has died. Michael says he doesn’t think her mother is dead. When Beth says she’s sure Catching’s story wasn’t a lie, Michael agrees that she was “telling the truth in a different way”: the shimmering beasts symbolize a heat mirage, her mother’s drowning symbolizes how her mother “abandoned” her at the clinic, the medicine the Fetchers gave her symbolizes her treatment, and the big storm really happened—it just didn’t kill anyone. Given this explanation, Beth feels naïve for having interpreted Catching’s story literally.
Michael is skeptical toward stories with fantastical elements (even though his daughter is a ghost), but he isn’t insensitive: he is willing to believe that Catching was “telling the truth in a different way”—explaining the emotional truth of events as she experienced them—rather than lying. Beth finds his one-to-one explanation of the fantastical elements in Catching’s story convincing, but readers may wonder whether he accurately interpreted every element.
Themes
Michael listens to a message on his phone and says that he’s received information about Nurse Flint and Director Cavanagh. The police, hoping to use the men’s bank activity to track whichever one survived, discovered that both were wealthier than expected. Michael concludes that they were embezzling from the home, the fire was accidental, and Cavanagh ran because he realized his misdeeds would be exposed in the ensuing investigation. Catching is a confused “runaway” coincidentally found during the search.
If Nurse Flint and Director Cavanagh were in fact embezzling from the children’s home, that might explain the children’s unhappiness: the men were abusing their positions of power to steal resources from vulnerable children. Yet the story that Michael spins to fit all the facts is rather pat and unconvincing, suggesting that he may not have accounted for everything.
Themes
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Michael, acting frustrated, tells Beth he’s going back to the hotel. Beth, worried that grief will overtake him without the distraction of work, suggests that he dine out. When he claims he’s not hungry, she begs him to eat something. He ignores her. She yells at him that she’s “right here.” He tells her she isn’t, gets in the car, and drives away. Beth, frustrated and lonely, wonders why she feels more included by the rest of her family, when they can’t see her like her dad can.
Even though Michael can see and hear Beth, he denies that she’s “right here”—a denial implying that there is something fundamentally wrong with her frozen-in-time existence as a ghost haunting the world. Beth’s preference for the rest of her family’s behavior, which make her feel good even though they can’t see her, emphasizes that Michael’s mode of grieving is less healthy than theirs.
Themes
Despite knowing it’s irrational, Beth gets angry with Catching for telling a false story and not giving Michael the illusion of a difficult case. Beth rushes back into the hospital, phasing through walls, and enters Catching’s room ready to yell. Catching, noticing Beth, says: “Took you long enough.” When Beth, flabbergasted, asks how Catching can see her, Catching explains that her mom could see dead people. Beth infers that Catching can too because Catching inherited all her female ancestors’ strengths.
Though at first Beth sensed that Catching’s story was true, she now discounts it because she no longer believes its details to be literally true—which suggests she doesn’t yet understand symbolic or allegorical storytelling. The revelation that Catching inherited the ability to see ghosts from her mother—as she inherited all her female ancestors’ strengths—again emphasizes that Catching’s Aboriginal heritage is a source of resilience, despite the racist government policies her family has suffered under.
Themes
Catching asks Beth whether Michael murdered her and, if not, why she’s haunting him. Beth, offended, explains that she died in a car accident and is trying to care for her dad. Catching, suspicious, says she’s acting like a ghost with “unfinished business” and asks whether she received a summons to move on. Beth begins to say no, but then she remembers that after her death, she was traveling toward amazing colors until she heard Michael crying.
When Catching sees Beth haunting Michael, her first guess is that Michael murdered his daughter—a disturbing conclusion that suggests Catching may be familiar with men abusing or harming girls. Yet Beth’s “unfinished business” is her father’s paralyzing grief, not her own desire for vengeance. In the novel, intense colors represent emotional and psychological health; the revelation that Beth was initially headed for intense colors suggests that moving on—not remaining frozen in time in the physical world—will ultimately be the right choice for her.
Themes
Catching correctly intuits that Beth was moving toward the afterlife until she came back for “that sad old man.” When Beth implies that Michael has a right to be sad, under the circumstances, Catching points out that he wasn’t killed in a car accident. Though a tiny voice in Beth agrees with Catching, she yells that Catching doesn’t understand Michael and that she lied about the other dimension and about her dead mom, who really just left her in rehab. As Beth’s yelling intensifies, a lightbulb in the ceiling explodes.
Catching is somewhat unfair to Michael here: a father whose daughter has died in a car accident does have a right to be sad. Yet given the unusual circumstances—Beth is stuck frozen in time in the physical world, haunting her father—Catching has good reason to suggest that Beth should be trying to take care of herself, not her adult parent. Beth’s volatile reaction to Catching shows that she isn’t ready to hear this truth at this time.
Themes
Catching dives under the bed and only emerges when the sparks from the bulb die. Beth asks whether she’s fine. Catching says yes, “No thanks to you,” and explains that ghosts can affect the physical world when they’re feeling intense emotions. Now that Beth has spent her anger blowing up a lightbulb, she recognizes that Catching thought Michael was hurting Beth and was trying to help her, albeit in “her own unique way.” She apologizes for her behavior.
Initially, Catching thought that Michael had murdered Beth. Subsequently, she realized that Michael is harming Beth by freezing in the real world with his grief—a different kind of harm, showing that family dynamics can be unhealthy without being abusive or violent. When Catching helps Beth understand how she can affect the world and Beth apologizes for blowing up the lightbulb, it suggests that a rapport is growing between the two girls.
Themes
Catching asks Beth her name. When she learns that it’s Beth Teller, she asks whether a “white boss” invented that name too. Beth explains that she inherited her surname from Michael, not her mother, and that it’s only symbolic insofar as her father “tells what’s right from what’s wrong.” Then, privately, she thinks he’s lost that ability in grief. Now she’s the one reminding him to do the right thing, like call her Aunty Viv—but he refuses to hear what she’s saying.
This passage explores a parallel between Catching and Beth: both feel that they have inherited abilities from the forebears whose names they carry. But whereas Catching derives resilience from the memory of her strong female forebears, Beth believes that her father’s grief has stripped away his ability to tell “what’s right from what’s wrong.”
Themes
Beth asks whether Catching’s mother knew of ghosts who could touch people. When Catching asks whether Beth wants to hold Michael’s hand indefinitely, Beth says no—but both girls can tell she’s lying. Catching tells Beth to leave and not return until she wants help reaching the afterlife. Beth leaves, planning to come back when Catching isn’t so annoyed with her.
Beth has identified no definite end-point for her haunting of her grief-stricken father, a revelation that shows how his grief has trapped her, preventing her from growing in the afterlife and making future-oriented choices. Though Catching’s ultimatum to Beth is harsh, it springs from a place of concern about Beth’s wellbeing, which highlights the girls’ growing rapport.
Themes
Beth can teleport to Michael if she thinks about him hard, but she decides to walk to the hotel so he’ll be asleep—not crying—when she arrives. Yet when she finds him asleep, he looks like he’s “caving in on himself.” She wonders whether she might have better options than trying to help him return to his pre-grief self. Feeling disloyal, she tells herself she just needs to figure out how to touch her dad again and maybe become visible to the rest of her family.
Beth can see that grief is causing her father to collapse emotionally, represented by his look of “caving in on himself.” While her attempts to comfort him haven’t helped, she suppresses her negative thoughts and plans to double down on denying her own death, remaining as lifelike as possible rather than moving on to the afterlife. This reaction shows how Beth, in reacting to her father’s grief, is stunting her own personal growth.
Themes
Yet when Beth imagines appearing to her other family, she imagines Aunty June frowning and shaking her head. Aunty June used to call Beth a “butterfly girl” because she lived in the present like her mom did, never burdened by the past. Beth knows her Aunty June wouldn’t like to see her “heavy with the weight” of Michael’s grief. She’s not sure what she should do or how she can help her father. She starts crying—only because her father is asleep and can’t witness it.
Before her death, Beth was a present-oriented, joyful person. Unfortunately, Michael’s grief has trapped her in the moment of her death—she is literally always wearing the dress she died in—and convinced her not to move on to the afterlife. After imagining her Aunty June’s reaction to her situation, Beth consciously acknowledges that bearing the burden of her father’s grief has trapped her and made her “heavy,” not free and light like a butterfly. Yet, perhaps to her credit, she is unwilling to leave him behind while he is so devastated.
Themes
