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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Nature of Love
Love and Violence
The Failure of Language
Summary
Analysis
The narrator (whose name is later revealed to be Nick) is listening to his friend Mel McGinnis talk—others often let Mel speak simply because he’s a cardiologist. Sunlight streams in through the big kitchen window at the home of Mel and his second wife, Terri, in Albuquerque. They’re sitting around the kitchen table with Nick and his own wife, Laura, drinking gin and tonics and discussing of love. Mel is adamant that real love is spiritual in nature. Before going to medical school, he’d spent five years in seminary—the most important years of his life, in his estimation.
As a cardiologist, Mel is an expert on the anatomical heart—a traditional symbol of love. The fact that Mel seems certain about what “real love” is suggests that he believes he’s an expert on the figurative heart—that is, love—as well. Yet he doesn’t give a solid definition of love here, only alluding to the fact that it’s related to the spirit. The reader can infer, then, that the four friends’ conversation about love won’t be as clear and definitive as Mel hopes. This opening passage also introduces the symbol of sunlight, the brightness and directness of which mirrors Mel’s initial certainty about love.
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Terri shares that her ex-boyfriend, whom she lived with before Mel, tried to kill her because he loved her so much. One night, the boyfriend beat Terri up and dragged her around by her ankles, knocking her head into furniture while telling her that he loved her. “What do you do with a love like that?” she asks the others at the table. Mel tells Terri not to be silly—what she’s describing isn’t love. But Terri disagrees: while it may not sound like love to Mel, she’s adamant that her ex did love her in spite of his violent behavior.
Terri’s story about her ex-boyfriend indicates that the dividing line between love and violence isn’t as clear as Mel would like to think. That Terri’s ex simultaneously abused her and professed his love for her perhaps implies that expressions of love and violence, though very different, are derived from a similar emotional state of passion. Although Terri can’t explain Ed’s love for her, it’s clear that she felt it on a deep level. And while Terri and Mel disagree about what constitutes love, they’re each certain that their respective opinion is correct—both are confident that love can be concretely defined one way or another.
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Mel tells Nick and Laura that Terri’s ex-boyfriend threatened to kill him. Finishing his drink, Mel reaches for the bottle of gin and says that Terri is a romantic who interprets violence as affection. At this, Terri shoots Mel a look, and he grins back at her and tenderly touches her cheek. Terri sips her drink and wonders aloud how they arrived at this topic; Mel is always thinking about love, she says. Mel retorts that Terri’s ex, Ed’s, behavior hardly qualifies as love.
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Literary Devices
Mel asks Nick and Laura what they think, and Nick replies that he wouldn’t know—he never met Ed. He says that he believes what Mel is trying to say is that “love is an absolute,” and Mel agrees that the kind of love he’s talking about is absolute and nonviolent. Laura chimes in that she can’t judge Ed’s situation either. Nick reaches out to touch Laura’s hand, and she smiles at him.
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Terri recalls that, when she broke up with Ed, he’d tried to kill himself by drinking rat poison. He survived but had permanent gum damage. Mel adds that Ed is dead now, and Terri remarks that Ed also botched his second suicide attempt, when he’d shot himself in the mouth. She expresses sympathy for Ed, which Mel objects to—Ed was dangerous, he reminds her. At this, Terri implores Mel to at least admit that Ed loved her. Nick interjects to ask how, exactly, Ed botched his suicide. Laura looks at Mel and Terri with a bemused expression, as though she’s shocked that people she knows could have been impacted by such a tragedy.
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Mel tells Nick and Laura that Ed had used a .22 caliber pistol to shoot himself—the same one he’d used to continuously threaten Terri and Mel. The couple had lived in fear while this was going on, and Mel went so far as to purchase his own gun for self-defense. Mel kept the gun in his car’s glove compartment, terrified that Ed would ambush him when he was walking to his and from his car for his nighttime call shifts at the hospital. Ed was crazy, Mel says—he knew how to make bombs, and he used to call Mel at work to threaten him. Terri repeats that she feels sorry for Ed.
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Laura urges Mel to get back to the topic of the botched suicide. At this point, Nick gives a brief aside that Laura is a legal secretary. The two of them met through work and quickly developed a romantic relationship. Nick and Laura are in love; they enjoy each other’s company, and Nick finds Laura easy to be with.
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Mel continues his story: Ed shot himself in mouth in the hotel room where he was staying. The manager came in, saw what happened, and called an ambulance. Mel was working at the hospital when Ed was brought in. Ed lived for three days, but his head swelled up to twice its normal size—a sight that disturbed Mel. Terri had wanted to visit Ed in the hospital, which she and Mel got into a fight about.
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Laura asks who won the fight, and Terri answers that she was in the room with Ed when he died—no one else was there for him. Mel repeats that Ed was dangerous, but Terri insists that she knows Ed loved her because he was “willing to die for it.” Mel insists that he’s not interested in that kind of love. Terri admits that Mel is right—they were afraid of Ed, and Mel even wrote a will in case Ed killed him. Terri says that she called the police at one point, but they couldn’t do anything until Ed actually committed a crime. Presently, Terri pours the last of the gin into her glass, prompting Mel to go get another bottle from a cupboard.
Laura says that she and Nick know what love is—for them, at least. Smiling, she bumps Nick’s knee with hers and tells him that he’s supposed to say something. In response, Nick takes her hand and makes a show of kissing it. Terri goodheartedly tells them that they’re making her sick—they’re still in the honeymoon phase of their relationship. Laura says that they’ve been together for a year and a half. “Just wait,” Terri jokes. Just then, Mel returns and opens the new bottle of gin, fills everyone’s glasses, and leads them in a toast “to true love.”
As the four friends clink glasses, the afternoon sun floods the McGinnises’ kitchen like a warm presence, making them feel lighthearted and relaxed. Mel declares that he’ll tell the others “what real love is,” and then they can come to their own conclusions. He pours himself more gin, and the others sip their drinks as they wait for him to speak. Nick rests his hand on Laura’s thigh.
Finally, Mel goes on a long diatribe about love. He says that he loves Terri, and Nick loves Laura, both sexually and emotionally. But he struggles with how to reconcile the love he had for his ex-wife, or that of Terri and Ed—he wonders where that love has gone. Mel points out how Nick and Laura glow with affection for each other, yet they’ve both been married and loved other people before. He says it’s both terrible and wonderful that if any of them were to die, their respective spouse could probably move on from their grief and find someone else. Then, Mel says, the love they’re discussing would just become a memory. He then asks the others if he’s making sense and to correct him if he’s wrong.
After Mel finishes rambling, Terri grasps his wrist and asks him if he’s drunk. Mel snaps back that he’s just talking; he doesn’t have to be drunk speak his mind. Terri assures Mel that she’s not criticizing him, and she sips her drink. Mel fires back that he’s not on call at the hospital today. Laura chimes in that they all love Mel, and for a moment, Mel looks at her as though he can’t recognize her. Then, he replies that he loves Laura and Nick too, and he picks up his glass.
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Next, Mel declares that he’s going to tell them all a story from a few months ago, in hopes of proving the point he was trying to make. He says it’ll make them realize that none of them know “what we’re talking about when we talk about love.” Terri tells him not to talk like he’s drunk when he’s not, and Mel snaps at her to shut up. He begins his story of a couple, a husband and wife in their mid-70s, who were injured in a terrible car accident on the highway. Terri looks anxiously at Nick and Laura, and then back at Mel. Mel passes the gin around the table.
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Mel continues that he was on call at the hospital on the night of this accident. A drunk teenager in a pickup truck had plowed into the couple’s camper. The teenager was killed in the accident, while the couple was in critical condition: broken bones, internal injuries, and severe cuts and bruises. What saved them, Mel says, was their seatbelts. At this, Terri interrupts to joke that Mel is speaking on behalf of the National Safety Council. She says that Mel is too much sometimes, but that she loves him anyway. Mel says that he loves her too, and they lean across the table to kiss each other.
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Getting back to his story, Mel says that when he arrived at the hospital, he and a group of other doctors performed intensive surgery on the couple for the rest of the night. The husband and wife both miraculously survived, and after two weeks in the ICU, they were moved to their own room. Suddenly, Mel diverts and suggests that they all finish the gin they’re drinking so they can go to dinner at a new restaurant. He comments about how much he loves food and says that he’d be a chef if he could go back and choose a different path. He asks, “Right Terri?” But before she can answer, Mel affirms that Terri knows this is true.
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Switching to a different tangent, Mel shares that if he could live in a different time, he’d be a medieval knight. Laura jokes that he could carry a woman’s scarf with him, along with a lance. Mel suggests that he could carry a woman with him instead, to which Laura replies, “Shame on you.” Terri asks Mel what would happen if he came back as a serf instead, and Mel says that even the knights were “vessels” to someone. Again, he asks Terri if this is right, but he continues speaking before she can answer. Mel shares that his favorite thing about knights (besides their women) is that they had armor to protect them. There were no cars and no drunk teenagers to hit you, he reckons.
Terri interrupts to point out that Mel said “vessels” when he meant “vassals.” Irritated, Mel rebuts that they all knew what he meant. He’s not educated, he says annoyedly—he’s a heart surgeon, but really, he’s just a mechanic who fixes things. Terri tells him that he’s unsuited for modesty. Changing the subject, Nick says that knights sometimes overheated in their suits of armor, dying of suffocation or exhaustion-induced heart attacks. Mel reckons that another vassal would come along and spear the dying knight “in the name of love,” and Terri and Laura observe that nothing has changed—people still fight over the same things today. Mel pours himself another drink.
The sunlight in the room has grown dimmer. Laura and Nick urge Mel to continue his story, and Terri jokes that the old couple is just “older but wiser” now. Mel doesn’t think this is funny. Laura again asks Mel what happened, and Mel suddenly declares that if he didn’t love Terri and if Nick weren’t his best friend, he would fall in love with Laura and “carry her off” instead. Terri tells Mel to get back to the story so that they can go out to eat.
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Finally, Mel relents, telling everyone how he would check in on the old couple every day while they were recovering. Both the husband and wife were in full-body casts with holes cut out for their eyes, noses, and mouths. The husband grew depressed, but not solely because he was traumatized by the accident—what really got him down was not being able to turn his head to look at his wife. Mel is clearly moved by this, repeating that the man’s heart was broken simply because he couldn’t see his wife. “Can you imagine? […] Do you see what I’m saying?” he asks the others—but they just stare at him.
Nick thinks that perhaps he and are his friends are a little drunk by this time. The sun has dissipated out of the kitchen, yet no one gets up to turn on a light. Mel encourages everyone to take a shot of gin so they can finish the bottle and go to dinner. Terri says that Mel is depressed and suggests that he take a pill, but Mel replies that he’s already tried every medication there is. Nick comments that everyone needs a pill on occasion, and Terri adds that some people hardwired to need them.
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Mel abruptly asks whether the others mind if he calls his children. Terri asks what he’ll do if his ex-wife, Marjorie, answers the phone, reminding him that he’ll only feel worse if he talks to her. Mel agrees that he doesn’t want to speak to Marjorie, but he does want to talk to his kids.
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Terri shares that Mel constantly talks about how he wishes Marjorie would either remarry or die, since Mel’s alimony payments to her are bankrupting them. Marjorie has a boyfriend who lives with them, so Mel is supporting him as well as Marjorie and the children. Mel says that Marjorie is allergic to bee stings, and he wishes she’d get stung to death. (“Shame on you,” Laura says again.) Mel makes buzzing sounds and moves his hands toward Terri’s throat, pretending his fingers are bees. He says that he wishes he could dress up in a beekeeper’s protective gear and let a hive of bees loose in Marjorie’s house.
Then, Mel slowly crosses one leg over the other, props his elbows on the table, and rest his head in his hands. He admits that it might not be a good idea to call his kids, and he suggests that the four of them go to dinner instead. Nick says that sounds fine—whether they eat or keep drinking, he’ll be content either way. “I could head right on out into the sunset,” he says, which prompts Laura to ask what he means. Nick says that he just means he could keep going.
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Laura says that she’s starving. Terri offers to put out some cheese and crackers, although she stays seated instead of going to get them. Mel flips his glass over, spilling the drink onto the table, and declares that the gin is gone. Terri asks what they should do now, but they all just sit in silence. Nick hears everyone’s heart beating in a chorus of “human noise,” none of them moving even as the room goes dark.
