The Girl Who Fell From The Sky

“When he finally reached the courtyard, he saw that his bird was not a bird at all. His bird was a boy and a girl and a mother and a child.” 

When Jamie leaves his apartment to see if he can find the large bird he thinks he saw fly past his window, he realizes that he has seen people falling: Nella and her children. Jamie’s interest in birds foreshadows his interest in Rachel, whom he first mistakes for a bird.

“Jamie thought of the great egret, of his life list, of his father James. He thought of how much he wanted a new history to his name, and he said, ‘My name’s Brick. I’m eleven. B-r-i-c-k.’”

Jamie changes his name in order to reinvent himself. His father, for whom he is named, is absent, and his mother is distracted by her drug habit; Jamie is a young boy who wants to make an impression on the world, so he calls himself Brick, an object that has weight and strength.

“Doug--that was his name. Funny how Laronne made him a black man in her mind when Nella first mentioned him. She wasn’t sure if it was out of her own bias or a certain wish. From what Nella said, the man—Doug—didn’t seem to have a real job. That could have been the reason she thought the man was black—her bias.” 

Laronne, Nella’s employer, assumes that Nella’s boyfriend Doug is Black, reflecting the complex nature of stereotypes and racism: Her internalized feelings of racism lead her to assume that all unreliable men tend to be Black.

“Anthony Miller makes me a princess. ‘All of this is a secret,’ he says, and I listen. ‘Because I really have another girl.’” 

Rachel’s romantic pre-teen encounter with Anthony Miller leads to her first kiss. Her first experience with a boy she likes is complicated: She feels special because Anthony has chosen her, but then she learns that Anthony is two-timing. Rachel’s first kiss, a rite of passage that should be a joy, becomes a shameful experience characterized by dishonesty. 

“I don’t cry. I have the blue bottle. I make resolutions. I turn twelve next month. It’s Day 223. I’m the new girl. I must be the new girl. I will fill myself with the color blue.” 

Rachel imagines herself bottling up her intense negative emotions into a blue bottle. Whenever she encounters a stressful or hurtful situation, she protects herself and hides her vulnerability by imagining herself placing the negative emotions inside it. The blue bottle can hold the emotions until they become too powerful; eventually, Rachel’s bottle will break and her emotions will reveal themselves.

“They danced that night. They kissed. Roger recited for Nella some Shakespeare he learned from a Vincent Price album. That seduced a girl easy. Never underestimate the appeal of a black boy speaking in tongues. That was Roger’s personal style.” 

Rachel’s parents, Roger and Nella, meet while Roger is stationed in Germany. Roger uses poetry to seduce Nella, a trick he has used before. This detail about Roger’s “personal style” implies that Roger has a history of seducing women and that he may not be a reliable partner for Nella, foreshadowing his later abandonment of Rachel. 

“Aunt Loretta cries without sound, but I can see a shudder go through her. Is it the cold wind? Drew is saying something to her. I hear in only half volume. The wind is in my good ear, and in the other a thrumming, a hum.” 

Rachel accompanies Aunt Loretta and Drew to the waterfall, where Aunt Loretta has a powerful emotional moment. Rachel cannot hear everything that Drew and Aunt Loretta say, drawing attention to her injured ear and her limited ability to understand the world around her. 

“Brick squealed. He thought he had stopped his body from needing this—touch that equaled joy. But then the tickles became jabs. The man’s hold was not a lasso but a noose.” 

In Rachel’s hospital room, Brick and Roger bond, but when Roger’s playfulness transforms into aggression, Brick feels scared. Roger has been drinking, and his lack of inhibitions leads him to act dangerously towards Brick. This moment reveals Roger’s potential for violence, and this drunken interaction is similar to Roger’s treatment of Charles. 

“Muddy and wet, Brick sat still even after the pigeon man let him go. He sat still even after the pigeon man walked away. Since the moment Brick said his new name he had not thought of the story that created it. He thought of it now.” 

Brick realizes that his thoughtless comment to the reporter about the man on the rooftop has harmed people. This realization inspires him to run away from home, find Rachel, and tell her what he knows about her story. In this moment, Brick takes on his new identity—an identity entangled in his lie. 

“Laronne had many questions from just the few entries she’d read. Who was Charles? What was it that broke Nella? Had it been a thought and then a plan?”

As Laronne packs up Nella’s apartment, she finds 29 journals that explain the reasons why Nella killed herself and her children. The answers to Laronne’s questions appear later in the book, as the reader learns alongside the characters the details of the events that led up to the tragedy.

“I know only a few more things about Grandma than I did when I first came to live with her, because some of things I did know I had to subtract after Aunt Loretta died.” 

Aunt Loretta’s shocking death causes Grandma to retreat into herself and to drink more. As a result of Grandma’s coping mechanisms, Rachel is neglected; though Grandma is the only family member Rachel has left, Grandma sinks into her grief and abandons Rachel. 

“‘My dad said you were really smart. I think you retarded.’ She pauses. ‘Not! I’m just playin’. Why you so serious?’” 

Lakeisha, Drew’s daughter, is a foil to Rachel. She is obsessed with superficial concerns and with boys while Rachel focuses on schoolwork and her deep feelings about the world. Like all the adults in the novel’s world, Drew withdraws from his biological child. His paternal interest in Rachel contrasts with his inability to connect with his own daughter. Drew’s disdain for Lakeisha gives Rachel permission to look down on the girl as well.

“On that last day Mor took us up to the roof, she had calculated the difference between what we couldn’t have and her ability to watch us want. The difference between her pain and ours, she decided, measured nine stories high.”

Rachel understands her mother’s motivations for jumping. Nella jumped off the roof in a desperate effort to shield her children from racism and pain; Rachel reads her mother’s destructive act as a gesture of love.

“‘It ain’t respectable. Don’t be like your mama—sniffin around life like the only nose you’ve got is the one between your legs.’” 

Grandma scolds Rachel for her interest in boys, comparing her to Nella. Until this point, Grandma has avoided talking about Rachel’s mother; her silence suggests that Nella does not deserve to be mentioned. Rachel reacts badly to Grandma’s insulting words and to the implication that Rachel has inherited promiscuity from her mother. 

“What must Nella have seen? Not the ground, but an expanse. It was this step and then another, then another. This was what Nella saw. This was what Nella did. She was journeying to where her love was enough, and it could still fill the sky.” 

When Laronne stands on the rooftop of Nella’s apartment building, she thinks about Nella and the difference between White and Black women. To Laronne, White women have the privilege to focus on impracticalities like love, while Black women, out of necessity, must be more pragmatic. Nella’s tragic choice saddens and confuses Laronne. 

“‘Having sex with Anthony Miller was quite an experience. Anthony Miller got kind of carried away and so did I. The doctor says I have a pretty bad tear down there. I should be more careful. And make sure I’m ready next time. I am still bleeding a little. I think he did something to me. I want him to do it again.’” 

After losing her virginity to Anthony Miller, Rachel writes a false version of what happened in her journal. Rachel’s decision to create an idealized version of her first sexual experience reflects her desire to overlay positive intentions over harmful acts—this is the same technique she uses to keep loving her mother. 

“Sometimes I hide her contributions. I empty out the bottles while she sleeps if anything is left in them. It’s what Mor used to do with Pop’s beer and cognac bottles. I know Miss Verle will stop by and bring Grandma another bottle of sherry within a day or so. It’s still worth it.” 

Rachel knows how to rid the house of Grandma’s alcohol because she has seen her mother get rid of her father’s alcohol in the past. Many characters in the novel suffer from alcoholism, and Rachel’s experiences demonstrate the impact of alcoholism and addiction on loved ones who must live with the consequences of addict behavior. 

“I am embarrassed because I don’t know what to do. Do I knock his fist with my own? Hold out my hand, palm flat?” 

Rachel’s confusion at meeting Brick contrasts with Jesse’s confidence. Though Jesse is White, he knows how to greet a Black person, while Rachel, who is Black, feels awkward and unsure. The moment relies on dramatic irony: Rachel and Brick do not realize it yet, but readers do, that Brick, formerly known as Jamie, already knows Rachel. 

“He’d been out of breath all day since he met her at the center earlier. The fuzzy-haired girl with the blue blue eyes was now a young woman. He shouldn’t be surprised that he’d found her.” 

Brick thinks back to his meeting with Rachel at the Salvation Army. He realizes that she is the same girl from his old apartment building in Chicago, the one he set off to find when he first ran away from home. Brick’s reaction to seeing Rachel reveals that he has feelings for her. 

“I don’t want being Danish to be something that I can put on and take off. I don’t want the Danish in me to be something time makes me leave behind.” 

While meeting Jesse’s Norwegian-American mother at their home, Rachel hears her say that her Norwegian heritage is a distant memory. Meanwhile, Rachel clings to her Danish identity as a link to her mother, asserting the importance of her Danish heritage to her self-perception. 

“The sirens have died. But now there is a loud honking. Two or three cars, honking like they are speaking to each other. Loud rock music. A scream. ‘Ni****!’” 

As strangers hurl racist slurs at Jesse and Rachel, Jesse brushes off the racist insults—easy to do, since they aren’t aimed at him—despite the fact that Rachel feels them keenly. To complicate matters, Jesse tells Rachel that he does not see her as Black. This episode demonstrates Jesse’s benign racism and selfishly shallow ideas about racial tolerance.

“I can feel the blue bottle shatter inside me. ‘You want me to be special and you want me to be yours,’ I yell. ‘But I can’t be both. You know that better than me.’ Ni****, ni****, ni****lover. ‘I am Nella Fløe’s daughter. That’s what makes me special—me.’” 

When Jesse drops her off at Grandma’s house after their evening in the park, she finds Grandma and Drew waiting up for her. They enter into a conflict when Grandma and Drew confront her about the risks of giving too much of herself to boys, and the stress of the evening overwhelms Rachel. She thinks of her mother because her identity as her mother’s daughter is the only one that makes sense to her at this moment.

“‘That thing—word—I said, to the kids. You say the things you’ve heard growing up. And I was high. It’s not an excuse but it’s true,’ Doug said. He had stopped crying.”

Years after the tragedy, Doug is attempting to stay sober again. As a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, he tries to talk to Laronne and to make amends for his previous wrongdoing. He tries to excuse his racist language and his hateful mistreatment of Nella and her children by blaming his past and his alcohol abuse, but Laronne is unconvinced.