49 pages • 1 hour read
Jane HarperThe Lost Man
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Culture of Silence
The Australian outback is a land of silence, isolation, and distance. Nathan points out “next-door neighbors, three hours apart” (2). Geographic silence, isolation, and distance are physical reflections of the characters’ emotional silence, isolation, and distance around abuse, rape, and intergenerational trauma.
Staying quiet is a lesson that Nathan absorbed in his youth: “He knew the unspoken rules: don’t tell anyone, not even each other” (306). Looking back to when he was alone and depressed as an adult, he realizes that “he hadn’t called anyone for help because it simply hadn’t occurred to him that he could” (306). Nathan gets through difficulties alone, pretending he is fine. Yet he doesn’t understand the same behavior in others. Regarding Jenna Moore’s silence, he says, “She didn’t help herself there by pretending everything was fine” (271). Steve points out the irony of his statement when he responds, “That’s bloody rich coming from you […] Nathan, people pretend to themselves that they are fine all the time. Every day, and for years on end” (271). Jenna’s silence parallels Nathan’s and suggests many people do the same.
The culture of silence begins to loosen after Cam’s funeral. The Bright family members experience relief and in the changed atmosphere begin to open up to each other. As Nathan notes:
The funeral had opened the floodgates […] With Cam safely in the ground, it seemed everyone felt more able to say what they couldn’t when he was walking around. [… T]here had already been too many secrets kept for too long in that house (299).
Revelations from Ilse and her daughters about Cam’s abuse, Nathan’s belief that Cam raped Jenna, and Bub’s confession of poisoning Kelly open the lines of communication. At the end, Liz fills the silence around Cam’s death by confessing to his murder and her handling of Carl’s abuse. With Cam’s death, the rule of silence is lifted, and the family is able to grow closer and stronger by acknowledging their trauma and pain.
Depending on Community
To survive in the outback, people learn to be independent and self-sufficient. But they must also know they can depend on each other. When a simple flat tire can become a death sentence, a person needs to know they can rely on their community for help. The rule in Balamara is that there is no excuse for leaving someone stranded in the outback.
When Nathan drives by Keith, the town unequivocally shuns him: “On this issue alone, the entire community of Balamara was unwavering. Leaving a fellow man to the mercy of the elements was almost unimaginable and absolutely unforgiveable” (105). The animosity goes so deep that the police must force the post office and the gas station to serve Nathan. The exclusion even extends to Nathan’s property—his staff quits, and the contractors he works with abandon him. Nathan’s exile is complete: “One morning, a few months after it happened, Nathan had woken up to a strange stillness […] There was not a single other person near him for hours in every direction. He had been cast fully and completely adrift” (107). Nathan contributes to his isolation, withdrawing beyond what the community demands.
Nathan identifies the death of his dog as the point when he began isolating himself to the point of danger: “It had felt like the beginning of the end, in a lot of ways […] and he’d stopped answering his phone to the point where Harry had put the satellite tracker into his hands and ordered him to check in daily. I’m okay; I’m not okay” (255). Nathan’s exile was more self-imposed than even he realized. At Cam’s funeral, Harry tells him to “at least give them a chance to forgive you” (247). Nathan is bitter about his exile, but he also punishes himself. After the funeral, however, he recognizes that “he had crossed a line somewhere […] He just hoped he could find his way back” (272). Nathan reconnects with his son and his family, and the novel suggests that he will, in time, reconnect with his community.
Learning to Be a Father
The Lost Man offers several examples of fathers: Nathan, Cam, Carl, and even the stockman. Nathan discovers that the stockman sacrificed his life to save his son by giving him his horse to escape a dust storm. This story shows the values that Nathan tries to live up to. He imagines himself in the situation, “telling, ordering, his son to go on without him. Promising him he would find the other horse and be right behind. Saying it, and knowing that it wasn’t true” (318). Nathan recognizes that sacrifice is part of being a parent.
Carl, Nathan’s father, looms large when Nathan considers his relationship with Xander. Instead of trying to be like Carl, Nathan “had stumbled his way through by thinking about how his own father would react to any given situation, and then—with sustained effort at times—doing exactly the opposite” (205). Although Carl’s abuse was never spoken of, it impacted Liz, Nathan, Cam, and especially Bub, whose “slowness and his difficulty finding the right words had infuriated their dad” (121). Nathan and Cam were compliant even when Carl punished them by forcing them to burn their most treasured possessions. Yet they responded to their father’s abuse differently. While Nathan does everything to avoid being like Carl, Cam falls into the same pattern of abuse that his father perpetrated.
Cam’s abusive behavior leads to his death. When Liz finds Cam at the stockman’s grave with Ilse’s documents, the narrators says that she “knew exactly who he reminded her of. He wasn’t her little boy anymore. Or at least, he wasn’t just her boy. He was his father’s son as well” (327). Liz knew what would happen when he went home: “And with the tone of his voice and the sun in her eyes, it was suddenly thirty years ago, and Liz knew, without a shadow of a doubt, what happened when men like that came home” (327). Liz’s experience with Carl told her what she needs to do to protect Sophie, Lo, and Ilse. Nathan’s discovery of Cam’s abuse creates in him a determination to avoid the same patterns, and Cam’s example warns him of the dangers of intergenerational trauma. Using these different examples of fatherhood, Nathan reshapes his relationship with Xander and offers a new example of his own.
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