The Meaning of Family

Between Maggie, Hal, and the Westaways, different types of families are presented in this novel indicating that each family is unique. Because of this uniqueness, family means different things to different people. Some families are happy and well adjusted while others fight and cause strife for one another.

For Ezra, Abel, and Harding, family means heartache and deception. Even though Hal looks at a family photograph album that seems to show the children of a typical, happy family, the Westaway children say that their childhoods were not happy. They have memories of their mother locking them in a tiny bedroom in the attic when they misbehaved. They believe their mother was so hateful and deceitful that she would intentionally write a will that would make the children fight among themselves. Because their mother sided them against each other so much, the brothers do...