The Canyon's Edge

“In Dad’s mind, the only danger in the world is people.”

The random shooting causes Dad to develop PTSD too. He loses trust in others and becomes paranoid and overprotective. His insistence on isolation negatively impacts Nora. Like her, he allows his experience of trauma to define him.

“Facing fear is a skill that must be learned.”

Mary is a firm but understanding presence in Nora’s head, talking her through her fears and self-doubt. Mary helps Nora remember her coping mechanisms and steers her toward healing through self-acceptance and self-confidence.

“I send my mind to another place.”

Nora’s poetry is a method of coping when fear threatens to take over. Poetry helps her “escape to somewhere else” (17). Freezing during her rappel, Nora creates a poem, and when the flood approaches, her narration switches from prose to verse. Nora’s poems offer a mainline into her thoughts and emotions.

“Are you likely to die in this situation? / Yes.”

When Mary asks Nora to identify her fear, Nora responds that it’s “dying.” Since the shooting, Nora is fearful and hypercautious. Mary’s question helps her recognize that her fear isn’t always rational, but as the flood rages below her, Nora’s fear and anxiety rage out of control, and her chance of dying is legitimate. Nora’s repetition of this question and her positive response highlight the danger of her situation and increase the narrative tension.

“I need to know the reason so desperately / that Dad sent me to Mary.”

Nora struggles to understand why someone would randomly kill others and why the tragedy happened to her family. Nora wants to believe that there is a divine purpose or plan behind the shooting; otherwise, life is meaningless. Nora’s search for meaning informs the novel’s theme of choosing life.

“As though my mind / is made of metal, / it’s pulled by a magnet / to another place, / an unhelpful, unhealthy place. / It’s the place of what-ifs.”

Nora uses figurative language to show how powerful her negative thoughts are. Although she’s conscious that “what if” questions are pointless and hurtful, she can’t yet stop herself from asking them—and blaming herself for what happened.

“Layer after layer / but I know, deep inside, / it’s really all just / Frosted Flakes.”

Nora struggles to avoid painful emotions by rebuilding a mental wall of anger, guilt, and shame, layering it like the canyon walls around her. She recognizes, however, that her wall isn’t strong: It’s as flimsy as the boxes of cereal that her father dragged her behind in a panic at the store. This acknowledgement shows that Nora is introspective and aware of the steps she needs to take to heal.

“Rewrite it into something where you / are stronger, braver, more powerful.”

Although Nora insists that she’s weak and needs her wall for protection, Mary disagrees. Mary repeatedly urges Nora to redefine and empower herself through her writing. The motif of writing informs the novel’s theme of healing. Writing about a traumatic experience can give one control over it and help one grow.

“How can I make it / through the canyon / with all of this Before and After / in my face the entire way?”

Nora’s lament is both literal and figurative. Her “Before” and “After” hair hangs in her face, obscuring her vision as she climbs, while thoughts of her life before and after the shooting cause her emotional pain. She can’t escape her uncomfortable thoughts and feelings, which are aggressively at the forefront of her mind, “in her face.”

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t care at all. / Like my life doesn’t matter.”

Nora doesn’t feel “reckless” or “invincible,” and she’s hyper-aware of the fragility of life, yet she feels apathy. The opposite of hope, Nora’s apathy stems from her feeling that life lacks meaning.

“Being alive means / sorrow, joy, pain, love, anger. / Feeling all the things.”

Nora’s haiku sums up Mary’s assertion that numbness is emotional death. At this point in the novel, Nora still attempts to wall off her pain, but she understands that she’s also closing herself off to positive emotions.

“My teeth clench and my body vibrates / and my heart races with rage as I / hack, / tear, / rip, / saw / my hair out.”

Although she hears Mary telling her to relax, manage her anger, and take care of her body, Nora gives in to her rage and takes it out on herself. Self-harm is an extreme way that some people with PTSD may express negative emotions.

“I beat the Beast back / and I vanquished the venom / and I thwarted the thirst, / and I’m still here.”

Nora is proud of her physical and emotional triumphs, which reveals that she’s gaining self-confidence. Her use of alliteration gives these lines a lilting, musical quality that reflects her feelings of happiness and energetic determination.

“It will have to be me / who finds him.”

Tearful and feeling alone, Nora admits to herself that Dad isn’t coming to save her. This acknowledgement shows Nora’s mental and physical fortitude as she takes responsibility for saving them both, despite her fears and misgivings.

“It’s your turn now, my little blackbird. / Get ready to fly.”

Mom’s affectionate use of her daughter’s nickname reveals her love for Nora and her belief in Nora’s inner strength. Memories of Mom help Nora find her own confidence.

“And   I   did   it.”

Free-soloing to the top of the canyon in her weakened, injured condition is a huge accomplishment. Nora overcomes her fears of heights and dying. This line of poetry reveals her pride in herself. The additional white space between words connotes a pause between each one, emphasizing the significance of the statement.

“She loves me, / and I hate her / because she can’t understand. / Because it happened / to me and not her.”

Nora feels that her loss separates her from Danielle, who hasn’t experienced similar trauma and, Nora believes, can’t understand her feelings. She feels that the trauma she experienced isolates her and makes her different from others. At the same time, Nora isolates herself, preventing others from understanding. Nora pushes Danielle out of her life and builds her wall.

“You can’t judge a / story, / dream, / poem, / nightmare / by the first draft.”

Nora learns that with inner strength, “you can completely rewrite” your personal narrative (262). Writing helps Nora heal and grow, changing her life from its painful first draft to a new version that looks toward the future.

“I am leaving the Beast / on this side of the canyon / forever.”

When Nora stops listening to the Beast—her inner critical voice that tells her she’s weak and “[n]ot enough”—and asserts that she’s strong, brave, and powerful, she finally frees herself from fear and negativity. Leaving the Beast behind is a leap forward in Nora’s healing.

“I no longer have / the anger to fuel me, / so I draw strength / from love.”

Nora rejects the negative emotions that she embraced and used to make her wall and is empowered by the love that she knows Danielle, Mom, and Dad all feel for her and by the love she feels for them. Love proves stronger than fear and death.

“But the most important thing is that / I hope.”

Nora flees hopelessness and runs toward hope in “Freedom,” showing how she has changed her outlook on life. Now, she wants to live and is hopeful that she’ll survive and grow. In these lines, even though the flare gun represents death and fear, Nora redefines it as an instrument of her hope. Using the gun, she hopes, will result in their rescue.

“It’s real, / even if it is a dream.”

In her dream, Nora hears Mom tell her she loves her and is proud of her. Nora intrinsically knows that even though Mom is gone, her love lives on in Nora’s heart and mind. Mom will always be with her.

“I think about how I used to believe my life would only ever have two parts: Before and After. Now my life has three parts: Before, After, and After After. I look forward to the parts still to come.”

Nora chooses to live fully rather than live in fear. She has found meaning in her life through the love of others and her love for them and healed from her negative “After” phase. Nora now has a positive attitude toward the future.