Hidden Bodies

Initially, Joe hates everything about Los Angeles. He views New York as superior, but his disdain for LA only grows the longer he is there. It is a symbol of everything that Joe disdains in the world, but LA also represents the pursuit of fame—as well as the potential costs of that pursuit.

LA enforces a transactional nature onto all relationships. When the cop fines Joe for jaywalking, his attitude changes when he learns that Joe is a writer, because the cop is an actor. Many people in LA are willing to overlook any umbrage if they can see a way to benefit from remaining an acquaintance with someone. Joe thinks: “Los Angeles is the seat of evil…It’s the womb of idiocy. It’s where everything bad comes from, the peak of the volcano of this nation’s stupidity. It’s no place for an intelligent man. That’s why there’s nothing to watch on the damn television set” (38). Even though there is nothing to watch, people want to be watched, which is part of why they want to be on TV. Joe extends this metaphor as far as the office of his landlord: “Harvey’s office is a glass box. Everyone here wants so badly to be watched, noticed” (54).

One of the consequences of trying to be noticed is that people can be noticed by predators. It’s one reason Amy avoids being noticed, but women like Delilah can be especially vulnerable to unwanted attention. Joe says, “LA kills women” (236). This predatory nature extends when he says, “LA consumes people. Able-bodied, intelligent people like Henderson and Delilah move here and turn into oversexed monsters” (239). The irony in this statement is that Henderson could not attract the opposite sex and in fact pined for his past stable relationship, and if Delilah was “oversexed” and preyed-upon, it was because Joe was preying upon her.

Charlotte & Charles is a children’s book that appears several times throughout the story. It tells the story of a giant man and woman who live on an island. When humans arrive on the island, the man is nervous. He remembers that humans tried to kill them in the past. The humans ring bells, which will kill Charles and Charlotte, but they wear earplugs to protect themselves. During an earthquake, they save the people and help them reach another island. Years later, Charlotte naively hopes that people will return, which surprises Charles, who believes that humans will always repeat the same behaviors. At the end of the story, there is a drawing of a new ship approaching.

It was Amy’s favorite book. Joe thinks it is dark. Later, Joe feels sorry for Amy as he thinks, “Charlotte & Charles is about the resilience of the human spirit, that happy people get fucked over and swim to another island and buck up and go again” (419). However, late in the novel, Amy says:

[T]hose giants are fucking pathetic, the way they can’t deal with themselves and they expect everyone to be as decent as they are. They have no right to be shocked when the humans gang up on them. Like, that’s fucking life. Get over it. You can’t go around expecting everyone to be like you. That’s the point (418).

The book symbolizes peoples’ tendency to repeat the same mistakes, and its refusal to learn its lessons.