Storytelling is a primary theme in Laurie Frankel’s This is How it Always is. The novel focuses on Claude, a young boy struggling with his gender identity who ultimately transitions to a girl named Poppy, but Claude, and later Poppy’s, struggles are only half the story. The novel also focuses on Poppy’s parents, Rosie and Penn. Penn, a fiction writer, has long since been working on a novel of his own, and stories, particularly fairytales, are an important part of his life. As such, stories are therefore an important part of Penn’s family’s lives as well. As Poppy’s struggles with her gender build and she moves toward puberty, Rosie, who happens to be a physician, doesn’t know if Poppy will be okay. Knowing if Poppy will be alright in the long run takes “prognostication” not “prognosis,” and that is out of Rosie’s wheelhouse. “Then that’s my skillset,” Penn says. Poppy needs a fairytale, he says, not a doctor. Through This is How it Always is, Frankel underscores the power of storytelling and argues that stories are the only thing that can save Poppy, and the world in general.
Stories are central to Penn’s life and his family’s, which underscores the importance of storytelling in the novel. When Penn and Rosie are just dating, Penn is in graduate school getting his MFA, and Rosie is in her first year as a resident in the emergency room. Rosie’s hours are grueling, and so is Penn’s reading schedule, so he spends all his time reading and writing in the hospital waiting room. When Rosie comes out on breaks, Penn tells her about Grumwald the knight, a story he writes just for her that has no beginning and no end. Penn and Rosie fall in love over the stories of Grumwald, illustrating the importance of storytelling in their lives and in the novel. After Rosie and Penn are married and have five children, Penn tells their children the stories of Grumwald the knight. Grumwald is really Rosie’s story, Penn says, but the children are part of Rosie’s story, so Grumwald is their story, too. When Claude is in kindergarten, he dresses up as Grumwald for Halloween. Claude wears his regular clothes, but his costume includes a cardboard cutout of a knight, which has words and phrases pasted all over it to represents the infinite words of the never-ending story of Grumwald, a story that belongs to him. Just as the story of Grumwald is central to Penn and Rosie’s lives, it is clearly important to Claude as well.
As Claude transitions to Poppy, storytelling, particularly the story of Grumwald, is essential to her transformation. When Claude makes the transformation to Poppy, Penn modifies the story of Grumwald to include Grumwald’s identity as Princess Stephanie. As the story goes, Grumwald is cursed by a witch whose magic turns him into Grumwald by day and Princess Stephanie by night. Through the story, Penn offers Poppy a reflection of herself—something she doesn’t often see in mainstream society—which again highlights the power of storytelling. When Poppy is 10, after she is outed as transgender and goes back to her identity as Claude, Rosie takes Poppy on a trip to Thailand where Poppy, or Claude, teaches the local children to speak English by telling them Grumwald and Princess Stephanie stories. The children also tell Claude Thai and Burmese fairytales, and through these stories they form a powerful connection. Plus, since Grumwald and Princess Stephanie stories are a representation of Poppy, Claude gradually gets the courage to return to her identity as Poppy, further underscoring the power of storytelling.
While Rosie and Poppy are in Thailand, Penn publishes a book called The Adventures of Grumwald and Princess Stephanie, which details the story of Grumwald and his secret identity as Princess Stephanie. Of course, Grumwald’s story is Poppy’s story, and Penn thinks it is important that other people read it. In Penn’s fairytale, the witch who curses Grumwald says sharing his story “will change the world,” and Penn is hoping to do the same. By writing down Poppy’s story, Penn claims “others can read it, and then it can grow.” In sharing Poppy’s story, Penn hopes to create acceptance and awareness for the LGBTQ community, and this is precisely what Frankel does in This is How it Always is.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Storytelling ThemeTracker
Storytelling Quotes in This Is How It Always Is
Bedtime stories were a group activity. And because showing the pictures all around to everyone involved a great deal of squirming and shoving and pinching and pushing and get-outta-my-ways and he-farted-on-mes and you-got-to-look-longer-than-I-dids, Penn often resorted to telling stories rather than reading them. He had a magic book he read from. It was an empty spiral notebook. He showed the boys it was blank so that there was no clamoring to see. And then he read it to them. Like magic.
“Girls in fairy tales are losers,” said Roo.
“No they aren't,” said Claude.
“Yes they are. Not like losers. Losers. Girls in fairy tales are always losing stuff.”
“Nuh-uh,” said Claude.
“Yuh-huh. They lose their way in the woods or their shoe on the step or their hair even though they're in a tower with no door and their hair is like literally attached to their head.”
“Or their voice,” Ben put in. “Or their freedom or their family or their name. Or their identity. Like she can't be a mermaid anymore.”
“Or they lose being awake,” said Roo. “And then they just sleep and sleep and sleep. Boooring.”
Claude started crying. “A princess could do cool stuff. A princess could be better than Grumwald. She wouldn't have to sleep or lose her shoe.”
“Poppy,” he said. “I want my new name to be Poppy.”
“Poppy?” Rosie whispered.
“Carmy says Jews name their babies after dead people they love. I never met Poppy, but I love her anyway.”
“You do?” Rosie was full of wonder.
“Yeah. Because she liked dolls. And because she was your favorite. I like dolls. And I want to be your favorite.”
“You are my favorite.” She nuzzled into his neck.
“Do you think Poppy is a good name?”
“I think Poppy is a perfect name.”
“I don’t want anything. I want . . . I only want to do whatever’s best for her.”
“Me too. Of course mc too. If we knew what that was. But unfortunately that exceeds my skill set. That's not prognosis. That's prognostication. We need a seer, not a doctor.”
“Then that’s my skill set,” said Penn.
“You can see the future?”
“It's the stuff of fairy tales, not hospitals.”
“That's a nice place to be,” Rosie admitted, “but it’s not real.”
“Sure it is,” said Penn. But Rosic rolled over and went to sleep.
But Claude felt better. He realized this was what his father had been up to all these years, not entertaining his children but perfecting his world. If you wrote your own characters, they didn’t disappoint you like real people did. If you told your own story you got to pick your ending. Just being yourself never worked, but if you made yourself up, you got to be exactly who you knew yourself to be.
“Very shelter life in palace so ignorant of poverty, sickness, old age, death. Then he go out into world and learn. Then he help. That is important part. Once he learn, he listen and tell, he help. He leave family, leave palace, leave being a prince.” Rosie nodded along. This part sounded familiar. “He learn about the world and the people. He meditate to learn to be. He give up all food and water and house, but then his body too loud to achieve peace so he learn again: too little as bad as too much. He teach, tell his story, help people see truth. He say be kind and forgive, honest and share. He say everything change so okay. He say middle way. He enlighten. That is the story. Learn mistake and fix and tell. Not-knowing to knowing. Even the Buddha You see?”
What was clear, however, was that the Buddha was born male, then cut off all his hair one day and got enlightened, then ended up looking like a girl. And as if that weren’t enough, the Buddha also seemed to feel that even things as unalterable as bodies were temporary, and what mattered was if you were good and honest, and forgiveness solved everything. That was how, whatever else they were, Claude and Poppy became Buddhists for life.
“Betwixt?” Grumwald was skeptical. “Isn't betwixt just a witchy way of saying in between?”
“Betwixt is more complex, more twisted threads, more layers than in between.” She smiled at him through rheumy eyes. “Betwixt a Prince and a night fairy is neither-nor as much as both-and. You see? Something new. Something more. Something better.”
“You have to tell. It can’t be a secret. Secrets make everyone alone. Secrets lead to panic like that night at the restaurant. When you keep it a secret, you get hysterical. You get to thinking you’re the only one there is who’s like you, who’s both and neither and betwixt, who forges a path every day between selves, but that's not so. When you're alone keeping secrets, you get fear. When you tell, you get magic. Twice.”
“Twice?”
“You find out you're not alone. And so does everyone else. That’s how everything gets better. You share your secret, and I'll do the rest. You share your secret, and you change the world.”
