Stuck in Neutral | Literary Qualities

Stuck in Neutral Literary Qualities

This brief novel has a number of poetic qualities that add to its creative leap, which is the effort to imagine what someone like Shawn may be experiencing. First of all, the narrative poem about Shawn, written by his father, is quoted throughout the story at the beginning of each chapter from chapter 5 on. The images in the poem help convey Shawn's disability: "his arms and legs are overcooked spaghetti" and his father's reactions: "I can't look at myself" and "Shawn and I are alone. We are disappearing."

Shawn, it turns out, has a poetic flair, too.

His use of metaphor is very effective. For example, Shawn describes his seizures when he was young as a washing machine that gets out of balance or a chain saw when the chain breaks and gets caught up in the gears. The imagery Shawn uses to describe his...
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