Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in They Both Die at the End, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mortality, Life, and Meaning
Human Connection and Social Media
Choices and Consequences
Friendship and Chosen Family
Business, Ethics, and Dehumanization
Summary
Analysis
Howie received a call from Death-Cast just before three a.m. telling him that he’s going to die. His Twitter followers are in an uproar. He’s been in a guarded hotel room all day, but not even his fame can keep him alive. Howie has only seen his lawyer and his literary agent, who needed Howie to sign the contract for Howie’s next (ghostwritten) book. He’s taken calls from several people, including his parents in San Juan. Howie tried to convince them to stay in L.A. with him after he got famous, but they loved San Juan too much. It bothers Howie that his parents will be fine; they already watch his life like fans and strangers. Howie put out a final goodbye photo on Twitter last night.
Though Howie’s exists separately from his social media presence, he ties the two together anyway. To a degree, this is a reflection of the present day—most celebrities have a social media presence of some sort—but it’s also possible that Howie turned to social media to fill the gaps left when his parents returned to San Juan. Howie made the choice to sit with his fame, and his parents chose to connect more deeply with each other—and now they all have to come to terms with these choices.
Themes
Howie is in the car with Sandy and Delilah. Sandy asks where Howie is headed. Howie scrolls through social media since he usually gets to check out of these interviews, but the love he’s getting online is more than he can handle. Howie refuses to answer Sandy’s question. He’s on his way to see his first love, Lena, who flew in from Arkansas—they could’ve made it if Howie hadn’t gotten famous. He spent years missing her so much that he wrote her name on payphones and coffee tables. Now, Lena is married and loves her quiet life. Sandy asks for Howie’s proudest accomplishment, and Howie says he’s proud of his art. He tries not to roll his eyes and thinks that Delilah sees through his non-answers.
It’s very likely that the note Rufus found scribbled on a payphone earlier in the novel was something that Howie wrote to Lena. Once again, all the characters in the novel are connected to one another in some way, even if they never meet in person or have anything to do with one another. Sandy’s interview questions make it clear that she doesn’t see Howie as a person—she’s not concerned with anything beyond the characters he’s played in films.
Themes
Sandy asks where Howie would be without the Scorpius role. He says he’d be in San Juan, but he has no idea where he’d be professionally. Delilah speaks over Sandy and asks what Howie regrets; Sandy says she’s firing Delilah. Howie turns to Delilah and says he loves what he did, but he doesn’t know who he really is. When Delilah asks what he’d do differently, Howie says he would’ve only done what mattered to him, like the Scorpius films. He would’ve used the money to spend time with the people who love him, and admits that he’s in town to talk about a book he didn’t even write. Delilah asks what would’ve made Howie happy. Happy thinks that love would’ve, which surprises him—he can go online for attention and he never feels lonely, but intimacy is different.
Unlike Sandy, Delilah now sees that while Howie is who he is because of his fame, he’s also a human being like anyone else. And further, once Delilah digs under the persona and tries to genuinely connect with Howie, he’s is more than willing to open up and answer her questions. Being seen, even if just by a stranger or a business acquaintance, is enough to elicit truthful answers rather than canned responses. Howie’s realization that intimacy and online attention are different entities drives home the novel’s insistence that on its own, social media isn’t enough of a connecting force—it’s simply a tool.
Themes
Howie says that his life is “a double-edged sword”: he’s famous because he got the Scorpius gig. If he hadn’t gotten it, he might be in love and be an actual son to his parents—and would’ve learned Spanish so that he could speak to his grandmother without a translator. He says that he wouldn’t have just been a bank account to his family. Even Sandy seems invested as Delilah asks if Howie would’ve been happy if he wasn’t successful but had those other things. Howie says he thinks he would be, and just then, the car jerks. Howie closes his eyes.
Sandy’s investment makes it clear that deep, meaningful conversations like this are compelling for all manner of people—it’s not enough to spout meaningless answers. Notably, Howie suggests that he would’ve made more of an effort to connect in person with people if he hadn’t closed himself off to real connections—again, meaningful, in-person connections are more important than anything else.
Themes
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