55 pages • 1 hour read
Megan LallyThat's Not My Name
Fiction | Novel | YA | 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.
Symbols & Motifs
The Floral Jacket
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to murder, violence, kidnapping, and child abuse.
Lola’s floral-sleeved jacket is a symbol of her identity to those who love her. Autumn made the jacket as her final exam in her fashion design class junior year, as a gift for Lola. Lola loved the jacket so much and wore it so constantly that Drew has “[a] thousand memories” of Lola in the jacket (159). The jacket is so much a part of Lola now that when Drew hears Meredith Hoyt describe it, he is sure that this means that the young woman wearing the jacket is Lola. Even Sheriff Roane is—at least temporarily—persuaded by this evidence. However, the floral jacket is really only evidence that Lola was at one time with Wayne—and this becomes clear near the end of the novel, when Drew realizes that it is in fact Madison who has been wearing the jacket. Wayne, who sees all young women who resemble his daughter as essentially interchangeable, has given the jacket to Madison. Madison’s reaction to the jacket is significant: She is not, in fact, interchangeable with either Mary or Lola. The jacket is tied to Lola’s identity, and Madison’s distaste for it makes it clear that she has her own entirely separate identity. Until Drew arrives at the cabin, the jacket also functions as misdirection for the reader, leading the reader to also believe that Madison might be the missing Lola.
The Willamette River
The Willamette River represents Drew’s love for and connection to Lola. During their relationship, the Washington City boat launch on the Willamette was Drew and Lola’s special spot. This is where they often went to park and talk, and even though the place is now haunted for Drew by his memories of Lola, he is drawn there over and over—despite knowing that it makes him look even more suspicious to the community and Sheriff Roane. At one such visit in Chapter 8, he is even still able to notice the beauty of the location, describing how a tree overhangs the boat launch, its branches full of vivid orange leaves.
Rivers are a common symbol of the flow of time and the journey through life, and the symbolism of the Willamette in this novel nods to this common meaning, as well. For most of the novel, Drew does not know that his time with Lola is over, and so he keeps returning to the river, reaching for the connection that has already slipped through his fingers. The river flows on, leaving Drew behind—but as it flows, it also passes the Alton fishing cabin where Madison sits on a bench swing, admiring the same river Drew is still drawn to. The river connects Drew to Madison through Drew’s love of Lola. and foreshadows his eventual rescue of her. Significantly, once Drew knows for certain that Lola is dead, he stops going to sit by the river. He only returns four months later, on Lola’s birthday, to mourn her in the spot that once connected them. The meaning of the river has changed for him, and it now fills him “with an eerie dread” (277). Instead of being the place where he and Lola share their lives together, the river is now the place where Drew must now accept Lola’s death and say goodbye to her.
Parents and Children
That’s Not My Name depicts several parent-child relationships, showing how differing parenting choices impact the novel’s younger characters. Wayne’s relationship with Mary—and with the unfortunate young women he kidnaps as replacements—is the most clearly dysfunctional parent-child relationship in the novel. Wayne is an authoritarian parent who places little value on Mary’s wishes. His extreme need to control his daughter culminates in her murder—a fate also met by several other young women whom he forces into the role of surrogate daughter. But Wayne’s relationship with Mary is simply the book’s most extreme depiction of what happens when flawed parents are unable to meet their children’s needs. Lola’s parents are also somewhat controlling and insensitive to their daughter’s growing need for independence, and Lola’s disappearance happens after she has a fight with her parents and slips out to meet Drew. When she is angry at Drew and storms away from the boat launch, she does not turn to her parents for a ride home—instead, she feels that walking home alone in the dark is a more viable option. Autumn, whose father has an overbearing and dismissive personality, is often left to her own devices overnight while he is working. She is angry at her father and embarrassed that his stubbornness prevents him from doing everything he can to bring Lola home. Their relationship is clearly a tense one; when she has the task of distracting Sheriff Roane while Drew retrieves the tip line information, she easily starts a fight with him over trivial matters. Drew wonders whether her litany of complaints is “genuine bottled-up angst” (125). When Autumn leaves Washington City with Max and Drew, her father calls and angrily yells at her instead of expressing concern.
By contrast, Drew’s relationship with his two fathers is portrayed as warm and loving, the healthiest of the parent-child relationships in the text. His fathers offer support and understanding over and over, and they are reasonable in their responses to his somewhat erratic and worrisome behavior. This results in Drew feeling a strong sense of responsibility to his family and having the courage to do what he believes is right—because he is positive that, regardless of his choices, he will still have two loving and supportive parents at his side. Madison, too, benefits dramatically from having a strong relationship with a parent. In her case, it is the gradually returning memories of interactions with her mother that begin to solidify her sense of self and give her the courage to confront the reality of her situation with Wayne. Significantly, these memories include many warm and lighthearted moments, like a popcorn fight, watching movies together, and birthday celebrations.
