Born to Rock

“We all have wild impulses from who-knows-where. In my case, I know exactly where. Mine come from McMurphy. The only connection between genetics and being a Republican is that I joined the G.O.P. to help myself control McMurphy.”

Leo explains his wild side, named McMurphy, and how he attempts to suppress it through his Republican lifestyle. This quote introduces McMurphy, which Leo sees as a separate piece of his psyche. McMurphy acts as a motif for the Genetics and Identity theme as the novel goes on.

“Melinda wasn’t just a music fan. She lived and breathed music. At least she called it music.”

Melinda’s obsession with music is a core part of her personality. Melinda, who dresses in goth and punk attire, expresses herself through her passion for heavy music, which Leo disdains. Her devotion to her preferred art form relates to the theme of Music and Self-Expression.

“That was the scariest part—were my strange impulses coming from my genetic hitchhiker, or were they my own, manufactured by paranoia, because I knew I wasn’t alone in there?”

After ten-year-old Leo learned that his dad is not his biological father—some guy named McMurphy is—Leo reassessed his relationship with the parts of himself he considered wild and labeled this aspect of his personality “McMurphy.” This quote shows how Leo separates himself from his genetics, declaring McMurphy a “hitchhiker” that doesn’t allow him to be alone in his mind. This quote builds on the theme of Genetics and Identity by showing how Leo rejects a part of himself that he feels is immutable.

“‘That’s why Purge is so great,’ she explained. ‘We think it and feel it, and there’s King screaming it over a hundred thousand watts of raw power. It’s like your words are pouring out of his mouth, and his rage is your rage.’”

Melinda extolls the virtues of Purge and angry music like it. Melinda’s description of how Purge puts a loud microphone to people’s thoughts and feelings develops the theme of Music and Self-Expression.

“I realized that the shadow of Marion X. McMurphy hung over Dad’s life just as much as my own. Maybe even more so, considering the circumstances. To have me suddenly pursuing my biological father now, sixteen years after Purge had left the spotlight, had to hurt. I’d just poured salt in that wound.”

After Leo confesses to his dad that he tried to connect with King Maggot to get money for college, he realizes this is the most hurtful reason he could have presented, as his dad regrets quitting a high-paying Wall Street job for a lower stress position after Melinda’s dad died. Leo realizes he’s reopened an old wound for his father, who has always lived with the knowledge that his son is the biological child of a rock star.

“‘You’re not doing a puzzle,’ I retorted. ‘You’re doing fifty puzzles because you won’t face the fact that I’m going on Concussed.’”

Leo confronts his mom about her habit of pulling out puzzles as a symbol of avoidance and a distraction strategy whenever the topic of Leo’s biological father comes up. Here, at the news that Leo will be touring with King Maggot, she’s pulled out as many puzzles as she can fit in the house, and Leo calls out this somewhat maladaptive coping mechanism.

“‘I’m sorry I planted a stranger inside you, who you feel you have to get to know in order to know yourself!’ she raved. ‘I’m not a bad person! I made one mistake a long time ago, and how can I regret it if that’s what brought me you?’”

As Leo’s mom sees him off at the airport before he flies to Concussed, she says the most she’s ever said about Leo’s conception. By associating Leo’s biological father with Leo’s quest for identity, she links the concepts of Genetics and Identity.

“But that was a small detail, and three thousand miles was a modest commute, to arrive at this point—the actualization of my quest for the mystery factor inside Leo Caraway. For there was no doubt that I was witnessing, on that stage, McMurphy in its purest form.”

Leo decides all the hassle of getting to Purge’s first show in 16 years was worth it because he gets to witness the purest, rawest form of the part of his identity that he’s labeled McMurphy. This quote develops the theme of Genetics and Identity by showing that Leo finds it satisfying to see a physical manifestation of McMurphy, even if this part of his personality is not something he cares for currently.

“And just as suddenly, the burn receded as my thoughts traveled back to that day on the commuter platform. I used to be one father up on Melinda. Now I was two—and the guy was her hero.”

After being mad at Melinda for having a sour attitude about Leo being King Maggot’s son, Leo realizes that Melinda’s reaction is coming from a place of pain at losing her own father. Leo backs away from his own anger to empathize with Melinda, showing the depth of his caring for her even before he realizes he has romantic feelings for her.

“‘But remember—this is Pete’s world, not yours. Drugs have always been a part of it. Before Pete; before King; before the Beatles. It’s on the sign: “Sex and drugs and rock and roll.”’ He had a point. I was just a tourist in the music business. I had no right to change the rules to suit me.”

Bernie explains to the naïve Leo that it’s normal to encounter drugs in the music world. Leo has been jarred by the drug use and violence he’s encountered so far on the road, but he begins to understand here that’s just the way things go in the industry. Leo’s flexibility to accept the things that initially worry him develops his character and his open-mindedness about punk music.

“‘I was a victim of that hype,’ she insisted. ‘A victim of that man. And now I have to stand by and watch him make a casualty of my son. Can’t you see that this life isn’t for you?’”

Here, Leo’s mom explains her feelings towards the danger Leo is in when traveling with King Maggot. Leo’s mom refers to herself as King Maggot’s victim, which implies her encounter with him was not entirely wanted or consensual. However, throughout the novel, King Maggot is seen hitting on women or partying. This quote, which shows Leo’s mom’s still raw feelings about the sexual assault that led to Leo’s conception, foreshadows the truth about Leo’s biological father being Bernie, the novel’s sexual predator.

“Yet it was something real. Most of my life, up to this point, had been training simulations. School, sports, the Young Republicans—even Harvard, if I got to go. How could I quit on the first real thing I’d ever been involved in?”

As Leo considers his mom’s request that he come home from Concussed, he acknowledges the importance of the real life experience he’s gained on the road, even if being a roadie on Concussed isn’t his first choice of field to gain experience in. This shows how Leo is growing as a person during his time on tour.

“But to be fair, my bio-dad seemed less interested in the sex-and-drugs-and-rock-and-roll thing than anybody else on the tour. While Max, Zach, and Bernie etched maroon crescents below their middle-aged eyes trying to burn the candle at both ends with Pete and company, King never once went out clubbing or partying with them.”

Leo has had a hard time getting to know King Maggot, who makes himself hard to reach when he’s not on stage with Purge. This quote also foreshadows the truth about Leo’s father being Bernie, as King is not the type to use substances or pick up women like the other band members and Bernie are. King’s abstinence from the sex and drugs aspect of rock stardom highlights the purity of his love of the music he produces—he is solely on the tour to continue performing his art, and not to glory in his fame.

“Three chords, cranked out fast and loud and distorted because your instruments are crap and you can’t play them worth a damn. And you scream your lungs out to cover up the fact that you can’t sing. It should suck, but here’s the thing—it doesn’t. Rock and roll can be so full of itself, but not this. It’s simple and angry and raw.”

King explains the raw power and drive behind punk music, emphasizing the anger and passion that band members must have to make up for a lack of talent. This quote relates to the theme of Music and Self-Expression as King teaches Leo that the need to project one’s inner conflicts is a core element of why punk music exists.

“It hit me—these were the questions you’d ask your son’s girlfriend! I don’t know what amazed me more—that he thought Melinda and I were together, or that he was acting like a real father.”

As Leo observes King Maggot and Melinda talking, he realizes that King Maggot believes Melinda is Leo’s girlfriend and becomes mortified. This quote is important to the development of Leo’s relationship with Melinda, for whom Leo has romantic feelings that he’s not yet ready to admit, and with King Maggot, who has only had sparse moments of fatherliness up until this point. King’s fatherly approach here also shows that he is not the sexual predator that Bernie is—King sees the teenage Melinda only as his would-be son’s friend, not a potential sexual partner.

“During high school, Melinda and I had become diametrically opposite as two people could possibly be. Yet never once had she abandoned me, even when I’d begged her to. What a loser I was. No, worse—pathetic. Now that she was out of reach, I was obsessing on her. I could even hear her voice rattling around my skull.”

Here, Leo acknowledges that he and Melinda have always stuck with each other, even when they made it hard for one another to do so. He feels like a fool for not understanding his feelings sooner. This quote shows how Leo is able to reevaluate the person he was in high school now that he’s had some time away from that version of himself.

“The thought of leaving Concussed—even with the money for college in my hot little hand—brought me zero pleasure. I was no punk rocker, nor would I ever be. Yet when I pictured myself back home with Mom and Dad, it all looked a little flat. There, I was the high school kid I’d been for the past four years. The entirety of my adult life had happened on the road with Purge.”

Leo considers the ways he’s grown since he came on tour with Purge. He’s not the same person he was when he left high school earlier that summer, despite the fact that still doesn’t completely fit in with the punk rockers. Leo’s question of identity here highlights one of his main conflicts: finding himself and integrating all of the parts of his personality by getting to know his biological father.

“My mother’s tearful story of the night I was conceived—did that sound like King? Hardly. But I’d been watching Bernie hunt and gather young women from the moment I’d joined the tour. He used his position with Purge to dazzle them with glamour; he used King Maggot as bait; he was a predator. Last night the target had been Melinda. Eighteen years ago, it had been my mother.”

Once Leo discovers the truth that Bernie McMurphy—not King Maggot—is his biological father, the reality sinks in. Bernie has been picking up women constantly throughout the novel, while King has not once shown interest in that kind of lifestyle. Leo’s revelation explains why Leo’s mom has such painful memories of her night with King Maggot—she was actually with Bernie, the sexual predator, and her consent was doubtful at best.

“In a way, this moment had only become possible because I had been stripped of my Republicanism, and she had been stripped of her gothism, and we had somehow found each other in a campground in Milwaukee.”

Leo and Melinda have both changed over the summer. Whereas before, their somewhat put-on personas of Republican and goth created a barrier for their romance, without these strict identities holding them back, they are able to get close to one another in a way they never had before.

“Fleming Norwood would have had a heart attack at the thought of anybody who looked like that existing outside the penal system. I have to admit to being a little surprised myself. But I genuinely enjoyed their company.”

After Leo observes the communal living and hospitality of the punk rockers camping at Concussed, his perspective on people who enjoy punk changes. By referencing his Young Republican friend and rival Fleming, Leo acknowledges that judging people by their self-presentation is a shallow and inaccurate approach. With more maturity and the ability to see beyond appearance, Leo enjoys the company of people he could have never fathomed he would in the first few chapters of the novel.

“It was almost precious to me now, not just the music, but the whole thing—the lights, the fans, the night; the cocktail of musicians, instruments, and a hundred thousand watts of power, turning an empty field into a nuclear detonation of sound and fury.

It had taken all summer, but I had finally become a punk Republican, if not the first, then one of a select few.”

Here, Leo acknowledges how much he’s grown attached to not just the music of Concussed, but the atmosphere and attitudes of the scene as well. Rather than continuing to feel like a person with a split identity, Leo merges his Republican and punk personas. Now there is space for every facet of his personality within his identity. Leo’s character growth foreshadows his acceptance of McMurphy and his genes.

“There was no way I would ever her that the watershed trauma in her life had not been King, but his sex-maniac cousin. The poor woman had spent nearly twenty years coming to terms with her brief liaison with a rock star. If she had to scale that back to a sleazy womanizing manager, I couldn’t predict how she’d take it.”

Leo decides to not tell his mother the truth about his biological father being Bernie and not King Maggot. Leo has chosen to lie by omission several times throughout the novel, but this time he chooses to do so for empathetic reasons, showing mercy and caring towards his mother and sympathy for her traumatic experience.

“Looking at Borman, I realized that I didn’t want to beg; I wanted to hit him. It was McMurphy, I knew. But this time my hitchhiker wasn’t some stranger. I was McMurphy, and McMurphy was me.”

While sitting across from Borman, who remains stubborn about the black mark on Leo’s record, Leo feels his McMurphy side emerge. This time, however, he acknowledges that it’s not some strange entity acting out, it’s a part of him—as much a part of him as anything else. Leo’s acceptance of McMurphy allows this righteous anger to be used for a productive purpose—to correct an injustice. This quote develops the theme of Genetics and Identity by showing how Leo accepts the parts of himself he cannot change, like the source of his rage.