The Nix

Until we learn (as Samuel learns) the complicated motivations that impelled Faye to abandon her family in 1988, Faye can seem selfish, arrogant, careless, and judgmental, particularly toward those women who in the 1960s, at the height of the feminist revolution, still elected to embody the traditional conservative ideal that a woman is best defined by the nest she creates and maintains. After all, the first glimpse we have of Faye is when she is 61, hurling rocks at a charismatic conservative presidential candidate whose political agenda promises to gut advances in women’s rights.

Faye is a woman shaped and defined by her political and social culture. Early on she finds her family confining. Restless within the intellectually shallow backwaters of her Iowa childhood, Faye dreams of a university education that seems a threat to her parents and to her conventionally earnest boyfriend. Her daring to express her sexuality destroys her reputation in the Iowa town and sends her off to college. There, she wants to lose herself, be part of something bigger than herself, bigger than the world of tending to a husband and children.

For the few weeks she attends the University of Illinois-Chicago Circle campus, she is initially swept up by the heady poetry of Allen Ginsberg that promises to open the portals of her soul to a vital and animated cosmos and then by the crazy energy of the underground student activist organization. Faye is not certain of its political ideals, but she is sure of the passion. She joins the riots in the street, part at last of something important. Her brief flirtation with a lesbian relationship and then, even as the riots tear apart the streets of Chicago, her impulsive decision to make mad and reckless love with one of the most outspoken and exciting student leaders, bring her rebellion to its grand climax.

Her disastrous return to Iowa and her struggle to make family work only reflect her deep-seated restlessness, her dissatisfaction with who she is, and her need to be part of something bigger. The evolution of her character in the narrative present is sweeping in its scope. In her difficult reunion with Samuel, her pilgrimage to the world of her father’s childhood, and then at last her return to Iowa to nurse her dying father, she sees what she never accepted before: the quiet reward of humility, the reward for caring for others, and the deep satisfaction of family once her identity is defined. 

In college, nonconformist Alice frees her deepest creative and emotional self through her rejection of convention and social expectations. Whether she is embracing the radical street politics of the counterculture, experimenting in unconventional relationships and sexuality, or trying to save the Lake Michigan dunes, Alice is defined by her need to be part of something of genuine value that will benefit the world she sees as manifestly imperfect. Initially suspicious of Faye when Faye arrives on campus, Alice will become the catalyst of Faye’s emotional evolution, exposing Faye to the power, passion, and energy of idealism. The very hopelessness of Alice’s idealism, the futility of her quixotic notion that the world can be saved, could easily make her the novel’s tragic hero.

However, Hill is not interested in such simplifications, flattening Alice into some disillusioned and defeated hippie. We see how Alice has evolved since the naïve hope and untested idealism of her college life in the 1960s. We meet her living quietly with her life partner. Alice clearly no longer believes in ultimatum and confrontation. She now quietly and resolutely works for a better world by tending to the mustard grass invasion of her beloved dunes. She knows the hard work demanded by such an endeavor. She tells Samuel that each mustard green must be pulled by its roots, a tedious and thankless job that parallels her lifelong need to be a part of change. She refuses to abandon hope. At 62, she is feisty, still keen to make a difference. When Samuel tells her the name of the judge Faye will be facing, Alice does not turn her back on her ex-lover; she maintains a generous and compassionate heart. Much like both Samuel and Faye, Alice comes to embrace the concept of balance and outreach. She finds unexpected contentment in her domestic arrangement, as well as in her unflagging commitment to making the world better.