I Hope This Finds You Well

“This is not one of those cool places to work with free snacks or standing desks or nap pods. My office is sort of like a recent time capsule. If someone wanted to travel seven to nine years into the past, they could come view our poster of men eating lunch on a plank, the fax machine still plugged into the wall, and the sagging yoga ball chairs.”

Jolene presents her workplace as being somewhat old-fashioned. In so doing, she alludes to an iconic 1932 photograph, Lunch atop a Skyscraper, which features a group of construction workers eating lunch on a plank that is hundreds of feet in the air. Her comments call into question whether and how the American workplace has changed over the past century, for better or for worse.

“The guilt of everything I did to them would be enough, but add to that the pressure of the life they want for me, and every conversation we have is the worst.”

As the novel opens, Jolene’s relationship with her parents is fraught with tension, as she feels guilty about the way that Ellie’s death impacted their social standing as well as continued pressure not to disappoint them. Here, Jolene’s thought establishes the theme of Trust and Authenticity in Parent-Child Relationships and makes it clear that Jolene’s relationship with her parents demonstrates neither of these qualities. Instead of addressing underlying issues with her parents directly, Jolene glosses over and ignores them, which not only makes for awkward conversations, as referred to in this quote, but also causes her to drift further from her parents over time.

“The thing about annoyance is that once there’s a spark, you can find more things to stoke it. It grew and amplified between me and them. And eventually the abyss stared back.”

Reflecting on her relationships with her coworkers, Jolene admits that she allowed a few small disagreements to build up until they created a barrier between her and the others, emphasizing