Abbey French’s Reviews > The Emperor of Gladness > Status Update

“So you’re a liggabit then,” she said, sniffling.
He looked at her hand on his sleeve. “What?”
“You’re-“ she gestured at him, “a liggabit. Boy and boy, girl and girl. I see them in the newspapers. Liggabit community.”
“Oh- oh, you mean LGBT?” He wiped his eyes and let out a single disbelieving laugh. She shrugged. “Yeah, I’m a liggabit”

The disconnect between “The boy” and Hair during the scene with Tom in the motel is interesting. Like we’re watching (reading) a different scene, that Hai is not the one who is involved, although it is his body there. Did Hai recognize what he saw in his mother’s window on New Year? Did this help him come to terms?

“How strange to feel something so close to mercy, whatever that was, and stranger still that it should be found in here of all places, at the end of a road of ruined houses by a toxic river. That among a pile of salvage trash, he would come closest to all he ever wanted to be: a consciousness sitting under a lightbulb reading his days away, warm and alone, alone and yet, somehow, still somebody’s son.”