Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in This Is How It Always Is, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gender and Binaries
Secrets and Misunderstanding
Violence and Discrimination
Storytelling
Family
Summary
Analysis
Rosie and Poppy’s first day back at the clinic is long. Rosie stays late to deliver a set of twins, and when she gets to her phone after her shift, there are 15 missed calls from Penn and a text message that says: “COME HOME.” Rosie is frantic, but she has no cell service, so she runs back to the guesthouse and the Wi-Fi. When she gets there, the internet is down, and Poppy is sleeping. Rosie can’t decide if that is good or bad. Poppy wouldn’t be able to sleep if it is bad news, but if it is really bad news, Penn probably wouldn’t tell Poppy first.
Obviously, Claude has transitioned back to Poppy, which is her true gender identity. A combination of the Buddha statues, the “middle way,” and telling the children stories has given Poppy the courage to live as she truly wants, which suggests Poppy is coming to terms with her gender dysphoria.
Themes
Rosie’s first thought is Camry, and she isn’t ready to lose her mother yet. Then, Rosie thinks about her boys at home, and of drugs, drinking, gambling, and guns. Her boys don’t do those things, but she also knows teenage boys are “morons.” Her thoughts turn to Penn. Losing Penn is absolutely out of the question. It is going to be a long night, Rosie thinks.
Rosie’s agony is evidence of the connection she shares with her family and the importance of family in the novel. For Rosie, losing a member of her family would be devastating, and being away in Thailand and not knowing what is going on is torture for her.
Themes
The next afternoon in Seattle, Penn’s phone rings. He is just doing a little writing before everyone gets home and the chaos ensues. He answers and it is Rosie. “Penn!” she yells. She immediately asks if he is alright and what is going on, and Penn is a bit confused. Yes, he says, he has some good news, in fact. He sent 15 texts, she says, and he says he sent one text. A text is sometimes sent multiple times with poor cell phone service. The good news is, Penn says, that he sold a book. Rosie can’t believe it. She didn’t think Penn’s novel was anywhere near done. It’s not a novel, Penn says. It is a fairytale: The Adventures of Grumwald and Princess Stephanie.
Penn has been working on a novel for years, but he has apparently abandoned his novel to write a book of Grumwald stories. Here, Penn has written in a princess named Stephanie, whereas when he told the story to Poppy it was Grumwald and Princess Grumwaldia. Penn must have decided that Stephanie was a better name—a moment that harkens back to the earlier moment in the novel when Rosie said Claude could be Claudia, but he eventually chose the name Poppy.
Themes
Rosie points out that Grumwald doesn’t have an ending, but Penn says it does now. Well, at least it has “an ending.” There is less than one percent of Grumwald’s story in the book. Most of Grumwald’s story belongs to Rosie, Penn says. Rosie asks how it ends in the book, and Penn promises to tell her when she gets home.
Penn’s promise to tell Rosie the story when she gets home is reminiscent of the days in the hospital waiting room when he kept Rosie interested by holding back some of the story, just as Penn did with the kids, like Scheherazade.
Themes
Get the entire This Is How It Always Is LitChart as a printable PDF.
Rosie goes to clinic to find K and tell her that she has to go home. K asks if everything is okay, and Rosie says yes. It is actually good new that takes her home, but she will be back. K asks Rosie if she is considering a move to the jungle, and Rosie admits that she is. She knows that a move to Thailand will make her family’s move from Madison to Seattle seem easy, but she can’t ignore their problems or keep running from them. Thailand has been good for Poppy, and Poppy has been good for Thailand, and Rosie knows it will be the same with her other children.
Rosie sees moving the family to Thailand as a way to meet their struggles head on and deal with them as a family. Rosie sees a move to Thailand similarly to how Penn viewed their move to Seattle—such a move is not running away; it is moving on and accepting the inevitable changes in life.
Themes
Rosie knows that Penn can write in the jungle, but she also knows they can’t live here year-round. There are patients back home who need her, too, but what Rosie really needs is her family. They will live together and celebrate what is good and be considerate of what is difficult. They will find the “middle way.” They will “tell their stories, dispel fear, let be. Amend as necessary,” Rosie says.
Rosie’s desire to live the “middle way” and to “tell their stories, dispel fear, let be. Amend as necessary” are basically the tenets of Buddhism. This, too, reflects the hybridity that is present in much of the book as the “middle way” resists either/or thinking.
Themes
