Memory, Grief, and Trauma Theme Analysis

Much of eighth grader Max’s story has to do with what happens in his present over the course of his yearlong friendship with Freak, a boy who’s suffering from a rare illness called Morquio syndrome. But underlying Max’s story is the idea that memory—and specifically, traumatic memories—dictate the course of Max’s life prior to Freak’s death. Max retrospectively narrates the novel a year after Freak death, telling his story as he comes to grips with memories of his parents and of Freak. Through this, the novel suggests that remembering is, on the whole, one of the most effective ways to deal with grief and trauma.

Though Max opens his story with a recollection of what Freak was like (and what he himself was like) when they were both in preschool, Max makes it very clear that by the time he reconnects with Freak about a decade later, he’s forgotten many things from the past. He doesn’t let on until much later that this was very purposeful on his part, given the trauma he experienced as a young kid. Max’s memories of preschool revolve around earning the nickname “Kicker” for kicking and behaving violently toward everyone in his vicinity, as well as observing that young Freak looked “sort of fierce.” At first, the fact that Max was known for a time as Kicker seems to support his grandfather’s fear that Max is actually a violent kid—however, when Max later puts his preschool years in context for the reader, his violent actions make much more sense. Max went to preschool just after his grandparents Grim and Gram took over caring for him, and while Max doesn’t say so when he recounts his memories of preschool, he later lets on that he lives with Grim and Gram because his father, Kenny, murdered Max’s mother, Annie, right in front of Max. Max’s violence—along with his later choice to simply forget that he was ever Kicker and the reasons why he assumed that persona—is a defense mechanism that allows Max to move on with his life and become the reasonably functional preteen he is when the reader first meets him.

This suggests that for Max, memory isn’t something positive: most of his major memories are extremely painful, and remembering what his father did forces Max to confront what people think he’s going to be like. Max also experiences occasional tantrums that resemble panic attacks when confronted with anything to do with his father—which, disconcertingly, he never remembers after the fact. However, as Max reconnects with Freak and they get closer to each other, Freak introduces Max to a new way of thinking about memory: he suggests that “remembering is a great invention of the mind, and if you try hard enough you can remember anything, whether it really happened or not.” That is, people can choose which memories to focus on, reframe unpleasant experiences in new ways, or even create imaginary memories as a way to cope with and make sense of the past. This piece of wisdom appears at several points throughout the novel. As the novel is narrated (and written as if authored) by Max, this suggests that Freak’s way of framing memory gives Max control over his memories for the first time. For the first time, Max can amplify the memories that make him feel happy and in control—such as those that have to do with Freak and their adventures—and gloss over or minimize anything that has to do with Kenny or other uncomfortable topics.

Further, the act of writing his and Freak’s story and remembering all of their adventures (or making them up—per Freak’s assessment of memory, it’s impossible to verify what, if anything, actually happened) helps Max to heal from the trauma of both losing his best friend and the trauma connected to his mother’s murder. Though Max the narrator is still dismissive of his younger self’s intellectual abilities and general competence, Max the narrator is clearly far more confident and in a much healthier and more stable place than he used to be. This transformation has to do not just with the positive effects that Freak had on Max’s life, but with Max’s ability to finally make sense of his memories. Remembering his grief and trauma, in other words, gives Max a way to move forward with his life, and hopefully to remember that he is capable of dealing with his memories—no matter how unpleasant—in a healthy, meaningful way.