The Apelles

The Apelles apartment building symbolizes interconnection. Though the characters and lives Hazel describes feel disparate and irrelevant to one another, they are linked via the tangible environs of the Apelles. The apartment building acts as a common link, and a container for all of the stories and moments Hazel depicts over the course of the novel.

The Blizzard Party

The Blizzard Party novel Erwin writes and Hazel rewrites, symbolizes reality. In Erwin's version, Hazel feels excluded. Her father has not only distorted the truth, but turned her from a real person into a flimsy imitation. She decides to rewrite the novel in an attempt to understand who she is and what she experienced. Both versions, however, seem similarly disjointed, obscured, and lacking an exact center. No matter how reality is rendered, the author suggests, it will always be different, and relevant to the person telling...