Friendship

The novel shows how Billy's friendships, especially with Alf and Clark, serve to define his sense of place in the world at the time of the narrative. Billy, Alf, and Clark act as integral sources of support for each other due to their shared statuses as relative social outcasts. Billy notes in narration, “Somehow we just orbited around [other social groups], not really fitting in anywhere. This social status is depicted as a cause of their own idiosyncratic traits, which, through no fault of their own, make them apparently unfit for other social pursuits. Billy is passionate about computer and programming, which is a rather solitary hobby, Alf is rather eccentric in his hyperactive attention on very specific goals, and Clark has yet to overcome deep self-consciousness regarding the formation of his left hand. The beauty of their friendship is that, despite the various mistakes and...