Chasing the Falconers

The opening chapters of Chasing the Falconers draw upon several tropes of the political thriller genre, adapting them for a younger audience. Although it is the Falconer parents, John and Louise, who have been convicted of treason, the novel focuses on the fate of 15-year-old Aiden and 11-year-old Meg, who, although they have committed no other crime than being part of the Falconer family, are incarcerated among youthful lawbreakers—some of them violent—at Sunnydale Farm in Nebraska. As in many more “adult” political thrillers, the protagonists appear first as innocents being persecuted by an immovable, all-powerful government. All appeals have been exhausted, and there is no way to right this injustice without going out of the law. Meg, though the younger sibling, realizes this before her brother does, telling him, “The government will never let them go. The case is closed. We’re the only ones who can prove our parents are innocent, and you know it!” (7). However, with little free time and “supes” tracking their every move, the possibility of proving that innocence is remote.

The shared condition of the members of the Falconer family introduces two themes that are central to the novel: Innocence and Criminality and The Power of Family Bonds. The young protagonists are keenly aware that the verdict handed down on their parents brands them as criminal traitors. The US government even gave them a new last name—Eagleson—on the grounds that it would be safer. Aiden recalls, “After the media circus of their parents’ trial, Falconer might as well have been Dracula for a last name” (5). The children are collateral damage in the government’s war against terror, a war they wanted made public. Nevertheless, their love for and trust in John and Louise prevents them from accepting that description; at Sunnydale, they still speak with their parents on the phone and write them letters at their respective prisons.

At the same time, however, a deeply felt sense of innocence fuels Aiden’s alienation from those around him. Much more so than Meg—whose rule-breaking tendencies he has sometimes deplored—Aiden maintains his sense of self by refusing to lose sight of the fact that he has been wrongfully incarcerated. He remembers that they are at Sunnydale not because they have done something wrong—like all the other children there—but because the government couldn’t think of anything else to do with the children of convicted traitors. Aiden thinks, “I won’t belong with these criminals […] How can I ever hope to defend myself against them?” (16). This knowledge gives Aiden a sense of superiority that the other boys, particularly Miguel Reyes, both notice and resent. Because most of the early chapters are narrated in the third person through Aiden’s eyes, the other boys are described in ways that highlight their crimes—the reasons they belong at Sunnydale when Aiden does not. Miguel’s crime is manslaughter; Seth’s is computer hacking. Other boys have been gang members, engaged in aggravated assault, and committed armed robbery.

Ironically, Aiden’s binary views on criminality and his commitment to his own innocence, at whatever cost, initially function as obstacles to proving his parents’ innocence. Although he gets the idea that arson could be used to cover an escape from Sunnydale Farm from the infamous Miguel, Aiden is reluctant to act on that information, despite Meg’s increasingly urgent pleas. When the fire does occur, the narrator carefully presents it as accidental and depicts Aiden making sure that none of the farm animals are harmed. It is only after all of this that he and Meg make their escape. Nevertheless, by escaping, Aiden and Meg become outlaws—archetypal fugitives on the run from a government that works against rather than for them.

Only hours after they escape, Aiden’s sense of innocence has its first test. Meg correctly claims that they need to change their clothes to avoid detection and that, without access to money, they will need to steal new clothing and—later—mountain bikes. Even as he acknowledges Meg’s logic, Aiden hesitates: “[T]he idea of stealing made him feel unclean. At least before, he and Meg hadn’t belonged in the juvenile correction system” (33). Breaking the law upon his escape from Sunnydale, paradoxically, is the only thing that makes Aiden believe he should have been there in the first place. Without the ability to see beyond a black-and-white view of criminality, Aiden experiences this change as a blow to his identity. Significantly, the process through which Aiden comes to change his view of what makes someone a criminal—a preoccupation throughout the novel—is foreshadowed at the end of Chapter 1, where he reflects, briefly, on the fear that he and Meg might escape and search for exonerating evidence about their parents only to discover that they really were guilty.

Despite Aiden’s doubts, however, the theme of family bonds and family loyalty predominates in this early chapter. Aiden never once considers leaving his little sister behind; indeed, the only bright spot in their incarceration was that they got to stay together. The adult Falconers are absent presences. During the flashback in Chapter 2 when Aiden recalls meeting with his parents after their arrest, only his and Meg’s words are given in direct dialogue; whatever John and Louise said exists only in paraphrase. Still, the narrator gives no indication that they tried to hide anything from their children; that they know enough to seek out “Uncle” Frank Lindenauer suggests that their parents spoke frankly.

Even in their absence, moreover, the Falconers remain present with their children. Aiden and Meg each rely on memories of their parents in pivotal moments. When Meg is trapped in a burning dormitory with no way out, she thinks, “‘There’s a solution for everything,’ Mom had always said, ‘if you’re willing to take the time to think it through’” (25). The memory of this advice gives Meg the strength to continue to protect herself until Aiden arrives to save her. He wraps them in blankets and gets them to the bathroom, where they can stand under the running shower until the flames die down. Though Meg is incredulous, Aiden insists that he got the idea from one of the “cheesy” crime novels their father wrote. The adult Falconers may be in prison, far from the main action of the narrative, but they nevertheless make their presence felt.

Aiden and Meg’s escape from the burning dormitory and Sunnydale Farm itself introduces a third significant theme: The Resilience and Ingenuity of Youth. Aiden in particular has felt the strain of boredom, confinement, and bullying, but he rises to the occasion when he and Meg have the chance to escape. Meg insists, once they have escaped, that their task is to find exonerating evidence in their parents’ case. Both of these attitudes demonstrate the children’s emotional and mental resilience, showing that it has not been completely dulled in their time at Sunnydale. Their ability to evade authorities, German shepherds, and even other inmates demonstrate that the siblings are both creative thinkers, even if that creativity manifests itself in different ways: Aiden takes advantage of the “accident” with the lantern, and Meg argues successfully for the utility of the mountain bikes.

The chapters are organized chronologically, with several flashbacks that clarify the plot and elaborate on the characters. The third-person narrator alternates points of view among the primary characters. In the first five chapters, the perspective stays mostly with Aiden, the older sibling, who has a more complex and comprehensive memory of the events that led to their incarceration, with short sections that offer Meg’s perspective. The combination of action, dialogue, and inner monologues presents the two protagonists as complicated people whose self-images don’t always match up with what others think of them.