80 pages • 2 hours read
Glendy VanderahWhere the Forest Meets the Stars
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2019A 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
Ursa’s Quarks
Ursa’s quarks are a form of magic she claims is one of her special alien abilities. She says her quarks “can change people’s fates” and “make good stuff happen around us when we meet earthlings we like” (137). Her quarks are a motif that helps develop the theme Taking the Good with the Bad. In the first instance of Ursa claiming responsibility for a good thing happening, Jo and Tabby sign the lease for their dream house. The owner puts the house up for lease because she must leave the state to care for her former partner after a severe car accident. When Ursa declares, “I made it happen” (95), she invites skepticism from Tabby, who asks if Ursa also “made Nancy get in a car wreck” (95). Ursa clarifies that she “didn’t want that […] but sometimes bad things happen to make good things happen” (95). Ursa’s ability to make good things happen sometimes comes at the cost of bad things happening. This theme is evident in several additional events involving Ursa’s quarks. For example, when a fallen branch hits Ursa in the head, knocking her unconscious, she claims responsibility, explaining it enabled a good thing to happen, which she clarifies is “[Gabe] staying overnight again” (136). Although Ursa is injured, she rejoices in the good thing that she made happen, noting that the bad thing was simply a byproduct of the quarks. This moment provides another instance of characters accepting the bad with the good.
Later, Ursa’s quarks are implicitly responsible for Gabe’s conversation with George. Although Ursa isn’t around, Gabe explains that he “was thinking of Ursa’s quarks” (223) just before they ran into George. George claims it was “some strange providence that [Gabe] walked past his door” (223) because he was thinking about Gabe at that exact moment. Gabe resented George Kinney ever since his childhood experience of discovering George and Katherine’s affair. The happenstance that brings George and Gabe face to face gives Gabe an opportunity to learn the whole story and eventually forgive his mother and George. For Gabe, having to converse with George Kinney is difficult because of the resentment he feels. However, it leads to Gabe learning the truth and accepting the love between George and Katherine. Although Ursa isn’t present for this meeting, the serendipitous nature of the encounter and the way Gabe relates it to Ursa’s quarks implies the quarks are responsible.
Most significantly, during the novel’s climax, Ursa claims responsibility for Jo’s loving her. However, this moment of love follows a shootout that nearly kills Ursa and badly injures Jo. While Jo is sobbing at the thought of losing Ursa, Ursa asks if Jo is “c-crying because you love me” (241). When Jo confirms that’s how she feels, Ursa says it’s what she “wanted m-most” and she “m-made it happen” (241). As Ursa’s life hangs precariously, Jo finally articulates her love for the girl. Ursa claims to have made that happen—but the implicit cost of this confession is the traumatic shootout that leaves both Jo and Ursa hospitalized. Ursa’s ability to make things happen, or her “quarks,” develops the idea that good and bad things are intertwined. This theme isn’t exclusive to Ursa’s quarks, nor do Ursa’s quarks always pair the good with the bad, but the quarks are a motif that in several instances show how good can come from bad.
Gabe’s Beard
Gabe’s beard symbolizes the resentment he feels toward his mother and his biological father, George Kinney. When Gabe was 12, he learned the truth about his lineage when he staked out the headstone of Hope Lovett, witnessing his mother’s sexual relationship with George and overhearing that George was his father. He resented the affair so much that he “grew the beard, so [he] wouldn’t have to see [George]” in the mirror (184). Gabe hasn’t seen his full face since he was 16. Gabe’s decision to keep the beard arises from his condemnation of and residual anger toward the encounter he saw between Katherine and George.
After Gabe tells Jo about the affair, Jo tries to help Gabe work through his feelings about it. After Gabe reveals his knowledge of the affair, Jo offers to shave him: “Don’t you think it’s time to stop hiding from who you are?” (196). Gabe allows it. In the following days, to help him work through the resentment, Jo reads him poems from his mother’s book that reveal her feelings about her family.
Later, Gabe comes face to face with George Kinney and has a long discussion about his relationship with Katherine as well as his desire to bond with Gabe as a son. After this discussion, Gabe is distraught at first but quickly accepts the idea of George and his mother being genuinely in love, “embrac[ing] Katherine and George’s future” (232). Gabe’s progress in overcoming his resentment after shaving his beard shows how the beard was a mask for Gabe to avoid dealing with those emotions. The beard symbolizes his resentment, and letting go of that part of him is his first step in letting go of those feelings.
Graves
Graves appear only a few times in the novel, but their symbolism is important in communicating the trauma that Gabe and Ursa work to overcome. When Gabe takes Jo to the grave of a woman named Hope Lovett, he tells Jo about how he staked out the grave when he was a child because he heard his mother and George Kinney referring to it in code. He watched as his mother and George “did pretty much everything you can do” sexually (183), unable to move lest they hear him “crunching leaves and twigs” (183). Immediately afterward, he heard them talk about how he was George’s son. Gabe learned about the affair and how he was a result of it in the same traumatic experience, with Hope Lovett’s grave in the background. To Gabe, the headstone represents one of his core, life-changing moments, which negatively affected his emotional life as he grew into a teenager.
In addition, graves represent trauma to Ursa. Jo and Gabe discover a drawing of a grave Ursa made, with a girl drawn under the dirt. In the drawing, Ursa wrote the words “I love you” and “I am sorry” on either side of the grave (170). Jo and Gabe think this drawing is of someone close to Ursa, but she claims it’s a drawing for the girl whose body she stole, since she “felt bad about taking it [because] people on this planet are supposed to be buried” (194). This moment suggests that Ursa is dealing with trauma related to death, whether the death of the girl whose body she stole or the death of someone close to her in the life she’s hiding from Jo and Gabe. In the final chapter, graves return as a symbol for Ursa when she attends her mother’s funeral. She still maintains that it was the real Ursa’s mother but agrees to “pretend I’m Ursa” (317) to move forward with her life. In addition, she visits the graves of her father and her companion, Little Bear. Afterward, Ursa seems ready to move on to the next chapter of her life with her new foster parents, Jo and Tabby. The graves, to Ursa, symbolize the trauma she dealt with immediately before the start of the book and during the novel’s events. By leaving them behind and agreeing to “pretend” to be Ursa, she shows progress in healing from her experiences.
