There Will Be No Miracles Here

The first chapter opens to a photograph of a family in an Ohio field. As Gerald focuses on the very happy young boy in the picture, it becomes clear he is describing an old photo of his family. Gerald writes that the book is a way to reconnect with the boy he was. But, first, he offers a bit of foreshadowing: “the boy needs to travel most of his journey alone” (12).

The narrative shifts to Gerald’s father, Rod, who was from Texas. Born to a preacher, Rod was a star high school football player. When Ohio State University football coach Woody Hayes wanted to recruit Rod, he attended a church service and donated a few hundred dollars.

Rod played for Ohio State, beginning in 1975, and was a star. At one point he broke his back, but he continued to play as he healed. This ended Rod’s football career. Gerald shares that his father married his mother, Debra West, in 1982, that his sister Natashia was born in 1982, and that Casey himself was born in 1987. Two years later, Rod graduated from college.

Jumping ahead, Gerald writes about “Buckeye Day” at his elementary school, when his father sends a video rather than speak to the children in person. The video depicts a game that ended early because Coach Hayes punched a member of the opposing team in the throat after he intercepted a pass.

Gerald recounts that his father was a stern disciplinarian, whereas his mother “was the only person I knew who didn’t do any of the stupid stuff grown people were doing all the time” (16). A list of oddities follows that raises questions about his mother’s mental health, albeit not to her young son. For example: she “didn’t wear clothes […] if she didn’t want to […] and she didn’t eat her vegetables” (16). She served Gerald “bologna for breakfast” and gave him Tylenol when he complained of a stomachache (16).

Gerald closes the chapter with an homage to his older sister Natashia, who named and then partially raised him. He also mentions that, in 1995, his family moved back to the parents’ hometown of Dallas, Texas.

Chapter 2 begins with the trip to South Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, Texas, where young Casey Gerald and his family are to live in his maternal grandmother’s house. Gerald’s conflicted relationship with his Granny, named Dorothy, quickly becomes apparent. He remarks that she is the only saint in the story, and that she was convinced he has the devil inside of him.

One Halloween when Gerald sought to answer the door after Granny forbade him, she chased him with the broom she used for killing roaches. Gerald still becomes slightly ill when he thinks of it.

The memoir next introduces Rod Gerald’s father, Cornelius (or “Papa”), the preacher to whom Rod Gerald was devoted. It was Cornelius’s wish that led the family back to Texas.

Once in Texas, vehicles are supplied to Gerald’s parents by his grandfather. They were once luxury class cars but are long past that point by the time Gerald encounters them.

Gerald foreshadows that many of the problems to come stem from this move to Texas. It is while he is in the third grade, when he gets a “B” for the first time because of the chicken pox, that his father “started using” (30).

Gerald feels close to his mother at this time, despite her odd behavior. For example, he was always able to find her in the bathroom doing her makeup, apparently for the entire day and usually in the nude. He had other relatives near him as well, who are briefly introduced in this chapter. Gerald decides at this young age that he will become a truck driver. When his aunt tells him he cannot do that, his mother reassures him.

One day on the way to school, his mother crashes the car. After moments of terror, Gerald has his first recognition that something may be not right with his mother.

Third grade is the year Gerald awakens to problems with his mother’s mental health. Although he does not yet understand it, he learns that she is bipolar.

At Gerald’s 10th birthday party—an event he had looked forward to—his father is conspicuously absent. Gerald notes that this is the first time his father is “not where I wanted him to be” (44).

Gerald has a cousin, Luke, who is slightly younger but has more toys and more friends. Luke reveals that Gerald’s father is spending his time at a house for “dope fiends” (46). This revelation comes during a heart-wrenching account of Gerald lying while on the phone with Luke, saying that his father has just walked in with a PlayStation. However, Luke catches the lie: The house for dope fiends is next door to his house, and Luke can see Rod’s car there.

At 10 years old, Gerald’s attitude toward his father’s addiction is aptly expressed as: “Daddy could have enjoyed all the heroin in the world for all I cared—I just wanted him to show up for my tenth birthday party and to inform me of his visit to [the house for dope fiends] so I wouldn’t be caught up in a lie” (47).

The narrative shifts to a young Gerald waiting to be picked up from school, only no one shows up. At that point, he begins a three-mile walk to his Granny’s house. His father and sister, driving, intercept him. But Gerald notes a change—though his father claims to be picking him up from school, Gerald knows that his father (and not Gerald himself) is responsible for this failure.

The largest change Gerald observes at this time is in himself. He becomes accustomed to seeing adults “los[e] their goddamn minds” (50), including his teacher, Gwendolyn Davies, as well as his parents. At such times, Gerald takes “on the task of fixing myself” (51), exchanging his childhood carelessness for a kind of submission and obedience.

Gerald recounts another child in his fifth- and sixth-grade classes, Mauricio, who decides to lie in the middle of the road to get hit by a car. He is rescued, but Gerald wonders if his choice was rational, given the likely strangeness of his life.

The chapter closes after Gerald’s father and mother argue to the point that 911 is called. The police come, and soon Gerald, his mother, and his sister are staying at Granny’s.

Chapter 4, which concludes Part 1, begins with young Casey Gerald (whose father calls him “Scooter”) visiting his Papa in the hospital as he dies. Gerald’s father breaks down and quickly spirals downward. He sells the family home for $27,000 and one month later is arrested for stealing cigarettes.

At about age 12, Gerald, his sister, and their mother remain in poverty. After recalling feigned happiness about a Christmas gift, Gerald writes: “I remain one of the very best liars you will ever meet, thanks to my mother and my father, who also taught me never to ask anybody for anything” (59).

Gerald recounts visiting his father in prison and in the drug rehabilitation center. He also questions visiting his mother in a drug rehabilitation center and in the psychiatric wing of the hospital.

Then Gerald provides one of the most moving segments of the book, as he writes of the experience of his mother’s disappearance. He advises, “If ever your mother asks you to choose between her death and disappearance, have her die” (64).

Gerald believed that his mother disappeared when he was 12, but it was actually when he was 13, which he discovers through writing this book. Her one big lie—“I’ll be right back”—subsumes the many others as she steadily disappears more often and he only sees her in facilities until, in what he remembered as 1999 but discovers to be 2000, she departs for what seems to be forever.

Then Gerald’s sister Tashia also leaves, to attend college in New Orleans, yet another separation that compounds Gerald’s earlier losses.