67 pages • 2 hours read
Meg ShafferThe Lost Story: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A 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 Complexities of Memory and Forgetting
For much of the narrative, Rafe cannot recall what happened during the six months he spent in Red Crow with Jeremy, which means that he has forgotten both the good and bad surrounding his time in Shanandoah. The complexities of memory and forgetting thus form the touchstone of Rafe’s journey in the novel, as he must learn to confront the reality of his past if he is to finally move forward in the present.
Rafe sketches all his memories of Shanandoah in a book. Sunk into paper, the memories of the Painted Sea, the unicorns, Skya, and Sir Jeremy are then erased from Rafe’s mind. Figuring that he deserves to forget his worst memory as well, Rafe adds an extra drawing, the one for which Skya never asked: “a picture of an electrical cord in his father’s hand” (421). If Rafe returns to the real world with the knowledge of his father’s abuse, he cannot access the idyll of a safe home. Therefore, he makes the deliberate decision to choose forgetting over memory. After he returns, Bill apologizes for slapping Rafe. Rafe makes peace with Bill because, as he tells Emilie, Bill only slapped him once. However, because Rafe remains stuck in time, the text suggests that forgetting and innocence also extract a heavy price.
The memories that Rafe has forgotten never go away but spill over into his art and sculpture. While the beautiful memories of Shanandoah lead to a lush outpouring of artistic talent, the suppressed memory of Bill’s abuse caused Rafe to sleepwalk. Once, he even drove to Red Crow in his sleep and was subsequently hospitalized. While it is also true that Rafe may have been seeking a way back to Shanandoah, Jeremy astutely links the sleepwalking episodes with Bill. He observes that Rafe’s sleepwalking episodes ended after Bill died. The sleepwalking, then, is a metaphor for Rafe’s attempt to repeatedly escape his father. He may have consciously repressed the memory, but his subconscious knows the harm that Bill has caused him.
In Shanandoah again as an adult, Rafe finally chooses to confront his memories after he recovers his sketchbook. Bill tells Rafe that opening the book will bring him nothing but misery, and Rafe tells Skya that he is afraid to open the book because he fears that it may warp his image of Bobbi. In the end, Rafe chooses to remember every bit about his childhood, including the fact that it was Bobbi who taped back the torn sketches. Facing the truth liberates not just Rafe but also Bill. It is only when Bill accepts the truth about his own actions that he grows light and free.
Thus, the text suggests that memory is an antidote to falsehood. While it may be ostensibly easier to forget or ignore difficult realities, remembering and accepting them is essential to growing up. In confronting his memories once and for all, Rafe regains a complete sense of self and can move forward, confident in the knowledge of who he is, who he loves, and what he wants in his life.
The Challenges of Self-Discovery
As the storyteller, Skya refers to Joseph Campbell to provide this definition of a hero: “[A] hero on the quest for the Holy Grail isn’t looking for the Holy Grail. The hero is trying to find himself” (58). Although Skya uses the definition to explain why Rafe is the hero of the novel, it can also be applied to all the protagonists. Throughout the narrative, Rafe, Jeremy, Emilie, and Skya must all confront the challenges of self-discovery in order to learn and grow as adults.
Rafe’s challenge in discovering who he is involves regaining his lost memories and confronting the full truth of his past. He therefore seeks his lost self, which he cannot embrace until he accepts his past and present, his love for Jeremy, and even his working-class origins. By regaining his sketchbook and facing his memories, Rafe understands what happened during the six months he spent in Red Crow as a teen and also confronts the reality of his father’s abuse. Rafe is then able to confront his father and assert himself, which frees him from his father’s control once and for all.
Emilie’s self-discovery involves finding her lost sister and getting in touch with her inner bravery. Her mother’s death catalyzed the first step of Emilie’s journey, forcing her out of the safe zone of her house. She then decides to trust Jeremy and Rafe to find her sister and travels to an unknown world. When Skya places Emilie on the Viking ship on the Painted Sea, Emilie abandons the ship’s safety and swims to Skya, which shows that she is now more willing to take risks. She then shows courage in the final battle by stabbing Ripper, which saves Jeremy’s life. Emilie thus learns that she is stronger and more capable than she assumed herself to be.
Jeremy’s self-discovery involves accepting that everyday life can also provide magic, just as Shanandoah does. Jeremy originally assumes that he must pay a price for experiencing a magical reality, such as separation from Rafe. When he and Rafe return to Shanandoah, he tries to persuade Rafe to remain there forever. However, when Jeremy returns to the real world at the novel’s end, he exclaims that it is not too bad after all, as his love for Rafe provides a magic of its own. He thus learns to find contentment even in his everyday reality as an adult, which shows his growing maturity and confidence.
Skya’s self-discovery involves being true to her writer’s self. Not having written a word for 20 years, Skya begins expanding on the story of Shanandoah and thus undergoes a symbolic rebirth. Skya’s initial refusal to write can be seen as a complex reaction to her kidnapping. However, to keep growing, she realizes that she must write again. Thus, various characters in the novel face their fears to prove their mettle as heroes, enabling them to achieve greater self-knowledge and fulfillment along the way.
Reconciling a Magical Past With Present Reality
While many traditional fantasy narratives sum up magic experiences with a happily-ever-after ending, The Lost Story suggests that navigating magical experiences and their legacy is far more complicated for its own protagonists. The novel thus explores the art of reconciling a magical past with present reality.
Even though Rafe and Jeremy got home when they were children, the homecoming was fraught. Jeremy notes that there is no going back or coming home for him in any real sense since he cannot share his experiences with anyone. What’s more, mundane life pales in comparison to the highs of Shanandoah, where he “conducted battles with demons cloaked in human form” (213). Jeremy has no easy answers on surviving a world where the highs are watching movies about magic. His complex response shows that life after the end of a fairy tale is hard to navigate, whether the fairy tale is a perfect childhood, a seamless love story, or the creation of a work of art. The only antidote to the feeling of anticlimax is to create magic from the mundane, as Jeremy learns to do when he realizes that even his present reality can be magical through his love for Rafe.
The characters must also confront the issue of people left behind in the real world. Rafe and Jeremy return to the real world twice, and in both cases, the trigger for return is worry for their parents. Both Rafe and Jeremy know that escaping into a magical reality does not make the real world go away. When grown-up Jeremy wonders if he and Rafe should stay on in Shanandoah, communicating with Bobbi through Aurora, Rafe is skeptical about how Bobbi would feel when she receives the message, “Dear Mom, I’m all right, and very happy, so I’m not coming home again ever. Love you. Bye” (430). Thus, the characters must reconcile their desire to escape into a magical world with the very real responsibilities that they have to loved ones in their daily reality. Rafe resolves this dilemma by vowing to take Bobbi with them the next time they go to Shanandoah.
Rafe also realizes the magic of everyday love and imagination when he decides to return to the real world to save Jeremy. Armed by this newfound knowledge, Rafe begins to find the real world magical. When he returns to Red Crow, the sight of the “endless wild rolling ocean of trees” suggests only beauty and magic to him (446). The fact that Rafe and Jeremy encounter magic after their return shows that reconciling the past with the present works its own kind of redemptive spell, enabling them to create a sense of magic even when they are away from Shanandoah.
