Dear Edward

While Dear Edward begins with the Adler family together, Napolitano purposefully explores the rifts between its family members immediately. Bruce’s discomfort with Jordan’s growing rebellion—and burgeoning adolescence—is clear in the way he reorganizes his son’s belongings and grows frustrated with Jordan’s unwillingness to go through the body scanner. Edward is little more than an observer of these shifting dynamics, and the fact that they remain unresolved will paralyze Edward after the crash.

The novel’s first chapter is deliberate in its character introductions. The central passengers affect one another in slight ways, but they are mostly strangers presented individually. Feelings of isolation will continue throughout the flight for each of the characters, although their impacts on one another will become stronger. Napolitano is establishing a major theme of the novel with the style of these introductions: each of the characters will feel isolated despite the space they share with others.

Napolitano’s decision to skip directly to the aftermath of the crash is purposefully disorienting. It allows the reader to share some of the confusion that Edward feels throughout the first months of his recovery. Doctors and nurses flit in and out of Edward’s life in the same way as his wavering consciousness, and they are mostly nameless and nondescript. The reader must catch up with the world just as Edward is.

The first glimpses at Edward’s growing celebrity are evident in his walks through the hospital hallways. While the people who watch him recover are supportive, their attention is unwanted. Edward feels a growing isolation that will expand throughout his journey. He only becomes comfortable around Lacey after she acknowledges that their situation is tragic. Edward is newly stoic, and even in these early chapters, honesty comforts him more than compassion.