Talking at Night: A Novel

“Counting not her steps this time, but the seconds. Elongating the numbers, over and over, in this way that she does like blood flow, unable to stop.”

Daverley’s use of sensory details in the passage capture Rosie’s sense of urgency and the fluidity of time in her OCD rituals. Her desire to lengthen the moment reflects a conflicting need to both savor and escape them, highlighting the tension of her struggle. Comparing the ritual of counting to her flowing blood creates a visceral connection to life and instinct, underscoring the involuntary, primal quality of her rituals. Rosie’s experience emphasizes her attempt to regain a sense of control in the context of her anxiety and OCD, underscoring The Individualized Nature of Mental Health Concerns.

“The school looks like a chalk and charcoal drawing, shapeless and smudged.”

Daverley uses a vivid simile to compare the school to a chalk drawing, which can easily smudge and disappear. The imagery of a shapeless, smeared drawing evokes a sense of indistinctness and uncertainty, mirroring Rosie’s anxiety about the future and her indecision about dating Will. The moment's abstract and dreamlike quality symbolizes the complexity of Will and Rosie’s emotions, as their environment feels familiar and distorted, reflecting the struggles and transitions that have occurred during their formative years.

“[T]hat feeling creeps into his chest, something he gets from time to time. A slight tightening, like a valve shrinking shut.”

Daverley describes Will’s depression as creating a physical sensation in his chest—a manifestation of his inner conflict. The valve metaphor illustrates the way he gradually closes off his emotions to prevent vulnerability. The sensory language of the constricting sensation conveys Will’s discomfort and reveals his emotional repression, a recurring problem for him throughout the story.

“He hasn’t felt this upward tilt before; as if everything inside him, the soles of his feet, his diaphragm and his deltoids, are being lifted toward the sky.”

When Will is close to Rosie, he feels a transcendent uplift, symbolizing his emotional and psychological elevation and a shift in his usual emotionally heavy mood. Daverley’s metaphor connects his inner self with a feeling of ascension, signaling the strength of their connection and the hope it inspires in Will. Mentioning specific body parts grounds the abstract feeling of emotional change in a tangible, physical experience, blending Will’s interiority with the external world as he feels a rare, newfound sense of possibility.

“She laughs then, and it is like the trail behind a firework; it sparkles and fades, the silence that follows left crackling.”

In comparing Rosie’s laugh to a firework, brilliant and ephemeral, Will emphasizes it as a fleeting moment of joy, equating happiness with impermanence. The sound imagery adds a sensory layer to the prose, evoking the aftermath of an intense, emotional moment. The laugh lingers in the air, contrasted by the charged quiet that follows, mirroring the tension and unresolved emotion beneath the surface of their relationship. The juxtaposition of sound and silence parallels their emotional complexity.

“It’s like a dirty, pointed object that he carries beneath his skin; a splinter, or an ingrown toenail.”

The simile compares Will’s emotional burden of his past to something persistently painful beneath his skin. Daverley represents his pain as hidden and deeply embedded like a splinter, minor in appearance but deeply painful and difficult to remove. Will allows his emotions to fester, causing inflammation and destructive anger. The passage conveys Will’s quiet agony and illustrates The Significance of Unspoken Words and Repressed Emotions.

“Rosie is filled up with those words, and her doubt about tonight, and the self-loathing from the lies, all of it lifts, for a moment, like steam from a cup.”

As Rosie feels a rare sense of peace, Daverley compares her emotional release to rising steam, symbolizing the temporary lifting of her burdens. Yet, like the vapor, her relief is temporary. The passage captures her internal conflict and cycle of turmoil through her negative feelings of doubt, revealing the contrast between the heavy weight of her emotions and the fleeting sense of release.

“His voice does not align with his words; every syllable, to her, sounds like an obstruction, solid and with hard edges.”

When Josh tells Rosie to date Will, she senses the emotional disconnect in his words, which Daverley represents through the intricate details of his speech patterns and cadence. His physical discomfort mirrors his internal pain as he tries to erect an emotional barrier around his own feelings so Rosie can be happy. His tone reflects Josh’s sense of isolation as he grapples with his sexuality.

“It storms inside of her, this lie she told, for her brother.”

Daverley compares Rosie's inner conflict about deceiving Will to a raging storm that leaves damage in its wake, foreshadowing the ways in which Rosie's choice to prioritize Josh's feelings over her own will continue to haunt her for years, causing deep hurt to Will and negatively impacting their relationship. The "noble lie" exemplifies Rosie's inclination to act according to her moral compass, regardless of the personal consequences—decisions that often lead to unintended emotional pain and heartache.

“It is cold and slimy and turns to mush in his mouth. Tastes of stifled things, like the words, forced out, by his friends at the lectern.”

Will’s guilt over Josh’s death makes eating repulsive and invokes an uncomfortable sensation, underscoring the novel’s thematic interest in The Significance of Unspoken Words and Repressed Emotions. Will finds everything about Josh’s funeral, including the eulogy, empty and pointless and the funeral proceedings contrived and insincere.

“[T]he deep sleep of her immediate grief has vanished, and she spends her time avidly, achingly, awake.”

Over the course of the narrative, Daverley explores the disorienting transition from the initial haze of grief to a more conscious, painful engagement with loss. Here, the juxtaposition of deep slumber and alertness reflects Rosie’s shift from numbness to heightened emotional awareness. The initial shock of loss has passed, giving way to a more acute and painful form of mourning. Rosie’s insomnia is physically uncomfortable, and perpetual wakefulness amplifies her emotional turmoil. The sudden disappearance of the protective numbness leaves Rosie vulnerable to the full weight of her emotions.

“She feels cold, and shaken, all of the time, like an upturned snow globe. Spinning, and empty, and full.”

The snow globe metaphor illustrates Rosie's emotional disorientation and vulnerability. She feels her world has been turned upside down and is in a constant state of instability. The contrast between feeling both "empty and full" employs paradox to describe her grief, where she feels overwhelmed yet hollow simultaneously. The passage captures the relentless nature of her inner chaos and encapsulates Rosie’s sense of being caught in a storm of conflicting emotions, unable to find solid ground.

“But she puts this away, in the drawers of herself.”

Rosie realizes she loves Will yet she keeps her feelings bottled inside. The metaphor of the drawers represents internal spaces where she stores complicated feelings, a deliberate effort to hide or suppress them. This imagery evokes a sense of intentional compartmentalization and emotional distancing, as if she is tucking away something too complex to confront directly, protecting herself by locking away unresolved emotions.

“Rosie remembers the way the walls seemed to shine with a new light; folding back on themselves, shadows shrinking, when Josh told her the truth.”

The imagery of the illuminated walls symbolizes a profound moment of revelation and clarity when Josh comes out to Rosie, collapsing the emotional barriers between them. For Rosie, it’s as if the once confining walls are now opening to create space for honesty and authenticity. The interplay of light and shadow represents the shift from darkness and concealment to illumination and truth, signifying self-identification's liberating power.

“Crafting a sentence, or stanza, and feeling, for a time, like she’s standing in sunlight.”

Daverley uses the metaphor of sunlight to convey the warmth, clarity, and fulfillment that Rosie experiences when crafting poetry. The creative process is uplifting and illuminating, and writing provides her a temporary escape from emotional darkness. Poetry allows Rosie to impose order on her thoughts and feelings, allowing her to bask in a sense of accomplishment and peace momentarily. Though the feeling is fleeting, the passage reveals the healing and transformative power of artistic expression in Rosie's life.

“That he brings her tulips, even though she doesn’t particularly like tulips, the way they droop one by one, like they’ve given up, their necks broken over nothing.”

Daverley uses the detail of the tulips to highlight the growing disconnect between Rosie and Simon. For Rosie, Simon’s gift of the tulips—an attempts to convey affection that doesn’t resonate with her—signals their fundamental emotional detachment. The drooping tulip image mirrors Rosie’s inner emotional fatigue and dissatisfaction with her marriage. The imagery of the flowers surrendering reflects the hopelessness of their relationship, while the broken-neck metaphor symbolizes the fragility of their bond.

“[She] Still touches him in a way he didn’t think possible, now, on medication that numbs the numb, leaves things muted and bearable and bland. But it lights something in him. That same old match, struck.”

Rosie’s presence at Gran’s funeral has an emotional impact on Will. The passage highlights Will’s experience being on antidepressants and Rosie’s power to break through his emotional detachment. Daverley reinforces the intensity of their emotional bond in the way Rosie stirs emotions in him that transcend the dulling effects of his mental state and awakens feelings he thought were lost or unreachable. The metaphor of the match symbolizes familiarity and a rekindling of the connection between them.

“The words hang between them, like forbidden fruit. Bruised, but unripe.”

Daverley uses the biblical imagery of "forbidden fruit" to symbolize both desire and danger. Rosie’s admission carries significant emotional consequences. The image of unripe and damaged fruit reflects the complexity of Will and Rosie's feelings and all they’ve endured together. This duality highlights the complex dynamic between them—although the desire is present, it is not yet ready to fully develop into a healthy, mutual connection. The suspended state of their words hanging between them creates a delicate moment in which the potential and flaws of their relationship are exposed.

“[S]he feels […] not weighted down or boxed in, but torn open.”

Being with Will creates a feeling of intense vulnerability and exposure in Rosie. Unlike the emotional confinement she felt with Simon, she now has a raw, almost violent sense of openness that exposes her defenses, a feeling she once avoided but now embraces.

“I wish I’d done everything on earth with you.”

In this passage, Rosie quotes a line from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Like Daisy and Gatsby, Rosie and Will have lost many years together. Rosie's melancholic tone echoes Daisy’s sentiments, underscoring her unattainable desire to turn back time.

“Her heart freezes over; spreads like frost down her spine. Shame, burning cold.”

The paradox highlights Rosie’s intense shame that feels both physically painful and emotionally chilling when she learns of Simon’s cancer diagnosis. The spine-tingling frost extends through her entire body, reinforcing the pervasive nature of shame. Daverley uses coldness to represent emotional distance and repression, reflecting Rosie’s inner turmoil and connecting her physical sensations with her fluctuating emotional state.

“His hunger is so real and cavernous that he wants to take her inside him, somehow, to drink her up; swim deep in the low, dark red of her.”

Daverley’s continues her use of visceral imagery to depict Will’s intense, almost primal desire for Rosie, a physical yearning that feels vast and consuming. Will longs for complete union, as if physical closeness is not enough. He craves an emotional and existential fusion with her, a sensual intimacy that goes beyond sex.

“[T]he peace he’s made with the things he did and the people who left and the way the sun keeps rising, regardless.”

This passage exemplifies Will’s character development over the course of his arc, which has brough him to a place of acceptance of past actions, losses, and the inevitability of life moving forward. A more mature Will recognizes the need for closure and personal reconciliation as he comes to terms with his mistakes and the people who have left his life. The sun metaphor symbolizes the relentless passage of time and the constancy of life, no matter the hardships or emotional upheavals one experiences— clinging to regret will not stop the world from turning.