I love the set up of the novel because it goes from his present and then relates back to his past. Something that really struck me at the beginning of the novel was how completely unromantic Chris depicted Rita. He talks about his marriage proposal to her and all the trouble he had gone to to make it special and she answered no telling him he was drunk on nature. Then when he asked her the third time the situation was, "Being refused twice led me to a careful strategy, guaranteed to catch her when she was weak. On the morning of her birthday, I hurried to the bathroom ahead of her. A few minutes later she stumbled into my trap. We were both nude. I eased my knees to the cold tile. 'Happy Birthday,' I said, 'Will you marry me?' Bleary-eyed and half asleep, she said yes, and stepped past me to the toilet." (page 12) Reading this I was SO surprised! And then it goes on to describe their wedding ceremony that was extremely small and no one was invited to. I guess this shocked me because it seems like American culture now puts so much stock into a perfect engagement and wedding that anything less than spectacular is completely unacceptable, and it really shouldn't be this way. Because their relationship seems to be really healthy.
Another scene I thought was quite powerful was when Chris finally decided he was okay with having a child. When Rita came back from somewhere he threw out her diaphram and condoms right in front of her, and being a girl this just made my heart swell...so cute! However, then Chris has to go through some identity issues and fears with having a child. He says on page 18, "I doubted my abilities to raise a child without ruining it." I have had these same exact fears. Not that I have ever been ANYWHERE close to having a child, but for about a year I decided I never wanted to have kids because I was so afraid of doing one thing wrong and screwing them up for life. I think this stemmed from the problems I was having with my parents at the time though. When I was in high school I fought with my parents like CRAZY so I decided I never wanted to be like them and the best way of doing that would be never having kids. However, my feelings have now changed. I feel like I can still be a good parent someday, yes I will screw up sometime and my kids are probably going to dislike me for it at some point, but I can do things differently than my parents and maybe not be too bad at the parenthood thing.
Chris' travels to NYC and Iowa were very interesting. He grew up a lot and became wise in many different areas. His move to New York to become an actor failed, as any reader could foresee simply from the themes of literature. When someone has a dream of becoming a big time actor in New York or Los Angeles, but they don't realize how hard it is to actually make it big. One of Chris' first "deflowering" experiences, if you will, was at the train station (i think that's what it was) with the drag queen. This scene was hilarious to me because I think Offutt put some dramatic irony here because I definitely knew this was going to be a man, especially when Chris kept talking about the gun he thought he was grabbing. This scene in some ways was a little bit disturbing, but hilarious too, because as soon as he realizes its a dick, he just ups and runs away. On one sense I don't really know how he could have gone so long without realizing it, but there was some definite humor here.
In essence, this is a story of self revelation for Chris. He leaves Kentucky, where he's lived his entire life, to see what else is out there in the world. On page 44 he says, "I left Kentucky as soon as the doctor pronounced me healed, a diagnosis only physically correct." I look forward to see what else he learns.
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