Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Patron Saints of Nothing, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Truth, Adolescence, and Justice
Responsibility, Guilt, and Blame
Culture and Belonging
Death and Meaning
Summary
Analysis
After dinner, Jay sits in Jun’s former room at Tita Chato’s house and looks at the stuff Jun had left behind, including a guitar pick and some books. It’s all junk, but Jay feels like there’s a code in it. He goes to bed and wakes up a few hours later. Because he can’t fall back to sleep, he practices with the Tagalog book he brought with him, but his pronunciation feels off. Jay is mad that his parents never tried to teach him Tagalog. When he was little, learning Tagalog wouldn’t have been an “identity crisis.”
Jay once again shifts into detective mode and assumes that there’s a truth he can derive from meaningless, ordinary objects. Jay is also still struggling with his in-between identity. Jay wanted to defend his dad when Tito Maning berated his brother for not teaching his children Tagalog, but now it seems that Jay agrees with Tito Maning, at least to some extent.
Themes
Jay begins to text Mia the updates about Jun but hesitates, thinking it might be inappropriate to text her after midnight when she has a boyfriend. He thinks back on a girl in his advanced placement chemistry class last year. They used to study together regularly, and Jay was sure that he loved her. He asked her to prom, but she turned him down. Jay realizes that he’s as comfortable with Mia as he was with that girl, even though he just met Mia. She’s probably not interested at all, but he needs her help, so he sends the text anyways.
Thinking back on Jay’s interactions with Mia thus far, it seems likely that he feels so close to her because they were able to have an open, honest conversation in a way he hasn’t been with anyone else in the novel. That said, while Mia values honesty it is also true that Mia seems to be (potentially) flirting with Jay behind her boyfriend’s back, which suggests that even she can’t always follow her own advice.
Themes
While he waits for a response, Jay reads a poem by Audre Lorde from one of Jun’s books. He imagines Jun reading the poem to him and asking what Jay thinks, not like a teacher but like he actually wants to know. Jay feels sad about Jun’s death all over again and flips to the next poem. He finds a business card for a bookstore tucked in the book. Mia responds to Jay’s text, and he tells her about the card, saying they should check out the store. She agrees and says that she’ll visit Jay tomorrow. Jay reads more poems, including one called “A Litany for Survival.” He’s stunned by it, calling the poem a “typhoon.”
Clearly, part of why Jay felt so close to Jun is that Jun used to take a genuine interest in Jay’s honest thoughts about things—again, this makes sense, because open communication is what Jay is lacking in his familial relationships and his friendship with Seth. Jun was also capable of making Jay think about things he hadn’t thought about before. And in some ways Jay is learning as much about Jun by reading the poetry books that Jun left behind as he is by investigating “clues” with Mia to learn more about Jun’s life.
Themes
