57 pages • 1 hour read
Colleen OakleyThe Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Misogyny and Feminine Rage
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses domestic abuse, sexual assault, and gun violence.
Misogyny is a theme that permeates the novel, and the feminine rage of the women who encounter it is important to understanding the characters and the plot. Violent misogyny in the past is what drives the events of the narrative. Salvatore D’Amato is abusive to his wife, Betsy, and beats her so brutally that she dies shortly after giving birth to their daughter. Louise and George run a whisper network that helps women escape abusive situations and were helping Betsy get out, and Louise promised to take care of the baby if anything happened to Betsy. To honor that promise, Louise kidnaps and adopts the baby, Jules, to save her from a life of abuse. Though never explicitly stated in the text, it’s clear that Louise got involved in the whisper network with George after witnessing her mother’s abuse at the hands of her stepfather and experiencing leering gazes from her stepfather and the threat of sexual abuse. This is also the root of Louise’s anger, anger that she deems justifiable, as any woman who isn’t angry isn’t paying attention to the societal situation and the way that women are treated in the world. By constructing an elderly character who remains angry about the misogyny in society, Colleen Oakley suggests that society is being slow to fully address the treatment of women.
Tanner’s narrative arc is also driven by an event steeped in misogyny. She fell off the balcony at the fraternity party because she was afraid to assert herself to the drunk frat boy and tell him to leave her alone or “kick him in the groin” (153-54) as Louise suggests, because she was afraid that people would say that she overreacted. So, instead, she backed up and fell, breaking her leg and ending her soccer career, which ended her full-ride scholarship to school.
Through Tanner’s journey, the novel suggests that female rage can be productive. Because she broke her leg, she ends up with Louise on the adventure to California. She learns to embrace her power and forms a lasting friendship with Louise. She learns to embrace her anger and allows herself to feel the full breadth of her emotions. Louise helps Tanner find a way to release her anger in a healthy manner, whether by talking about it or recreationally shooting the pistol. She mentors Tanner, showing her that misogyny does exist in society and that it’s okay to be angry about it.
Unlikely Friendship and Forgiveness
The most central relationship in this novel is the friendship that forms between Tanner and Louise. The friendship is unlikely from the beginning; upon meeting, both women are closed off and judgmental to each other. Louise mentally criticizes Tanner’s appearance, her lack of makeup and her “sweatpants and stained T-shirt” (5). Tanner thinks that Louise smells like “toilet water” (12). Louise doesn’t understand Tanner’s interest in video games and makes snap judgments about her generation and their beliefs. Tanner only sees the surface of Louise: the seemingly boring older woman in a “Mister Rogers cardigan” (7). For the first 10 days together, the pair stays in the shallows, barely dipping their toes into the depths of each other’s personalities and life experiences.
However, despite the rocky beginning, the pair slowly bonds over the course of their adventure. From Atlanta to St. Louis to Nebraska, both Tanner and Louise open up about their painful pasts and presents: Louise with her abusive stepfather and now her Parkinson’s, Tanner with her leg injury and the end of her soccer career and now her rudderless feeling about life. They find understanding in each other. Despite their generational differences, they are both healing from an injury that caused serious changes in their lives (Louise’s broken hip, Tanner’s broken leg). They are both dealing with their anger about the misogyny in the world. They are both hoping for forgiveness from friends that they betrayed. The two are more alike than they think, and they begin to realize that as their journey progresses and their relationship grows. The novel offers the perspective that unlikely friendships, particularly those that are intergenerational, are enriching and help people to learn and grow
Forgiveness is a key part of the novel’s representations of friendship. Louise wants to get to George before Salvatore does to keep George safe but also to gain George’s forgiveness for going against her wishes and stealing Jules. Though Louise knows that stealing Jules was the right thing to do, it put George in considerable danger and led them to not see each other for nearly 50 years. It also caused them to need to shut down their whisper network, and though they gave the heist money to the women who needed it, their time helping women directly escape abuse was over. When Louise gets to George and asks her if she forgives her, George says yes and that she understands why Louise did it. Louise then feels as though her soul was “cleansed,” and their friendship picks up where it left off (292). Similarly, Tanner craves forgiveness from her best friend and former teammate, Vee, for telling their coach that Vee did drugs. Tanner was too ashamed to apologize for months but texts Vee an apology after seeing George and Louise’s reunion and forgiveness. When she visits Vee after her adventure with Louise ends, Vee forgives her, too. This novel demonstrates that friendship is a more powerful force than betrayal.
Pursuit of Adventure
The largest portion of this novel is dedicated to Tanner and Louise’s trip west to California. Though a stressful one, their journey is certainly an adventure, with numerous obstacles and triumphs. Tanner is initially resistant to the adventure, at first refusing to be Louise’s getaway driver. Her fears are somewhat practical: She fears getting arrested for harboring a fugitive, she fears running away to an unknown destination, and she fears what could befall them on the road. However, at her core, she fears pushing herself out of her comfort zone and starting a new chapter. Louise pushes her out of her inertia, offering her enough money to return to school in exchange for the drive. Tanner then agrees, telling herself that it’s for the money, but a part of her also wants to feel alive again. Louise has an exciting past, but for the last 48 years has lived a quiet life. She has the Jaguar stored in the back shed in case she needs to run, but she never thought that she’d actually use it. It’s not until George’s letter, and then George’s call, that she realizes that she needs to go rescue her.
As the adventure unfolds, both women are challenged. Louise is challenged by her fear of heights by the St. Louis Arch and her resistance to emotional intimacy by Tanner’s questions about her Parkinson’s diagnosis. Tanner is challenged to share the truth of her fears about who she is and what her life will turn out to be and to question and redirect her anger. Though the trip has its physical challenges, like a broken-down car and the news that the police are onto them, the pair makes it to California and saves George from Salvatore, with Tanner even getting the adventure of shooting a gun at a former mafia boss. There is a physical journey in this novel across thousands of miles, but there is also an emotional journey of growth for both Tanner and Louise as they find out more about each other and more about themselves. This suggests that pursuing adventure helps people to grow.
Aging and the Body
Aging and the body heavily populate this novel. Tanner becomes a caretaker for Louise because her children think that she cannot take care of herself after she breaks her hip. Louise’s age and the state of her body convince her children to force her to give up her autonomy and have someone else live in her house. It irritates Louise and she resents her body for giving out on her. She feels that her mind is still sharp, but her body cannot keep up with her. The body’s betrayal only worsens when she is diagnosed with Parkinson’s, a degenerative disease. Louise becomes angry when her hand tremors as she’s trying to work on her crossword puzzles. She hates the vulnerability of her night terrors. Though she is happy that she still has her memory, unlike George who struggles with short-term recall, she knows that it’s only a matter of time before her mind turns on her, too. This portrayal of Louise suggests that aging causes misrepresentation of who a person really is inside.
Louise struggles to come to terms with these realities, as well as the reality of widowhood. Though she settles into the independence of widowhood, throughout the novel she frequently misses Ken, her husband, even as she has a sexual encounter with Leonard, the bartender. She notes that Leonard, a widower, is probably thinking about his wife as they hold each other, and she tries not to think about Ken in turn. She enjoys the intimate encounter, which her body wanted, but her deeper feelings are more complex. The physical and emotional landscapes that come with her age are difficult, and Louise spends much of her interior dialogue mulling over them. This defies underrepresentation of elderly women’s sexuality in popular culture.
Tanner has issues with her own body. Her broken leg was fractured so badly that the doctors doubt she will ever run again, and if she does, not at the speed she once had. Her body betrayed her, and she struggles to cope with the ramifications of that betrayal. Tanner also feels like her life is over, that soccer was the only thing she was good at, and now she has no direction. Louise, over dinner at the Cobra Lounge, reminds her that she’s only 21 years old. She’s still young and has decades to decide what her life will look like and what passions she should pursue. Louise also reminds Tanner that her body is hers, and if she wants to take a “lover,” she should, refusing to shame Tanner for her bodily desires (182). Regardless of their ages, both Tanner and Louise encounter questions of the body and what it means to be in their respective seasons of life.
