Mental Disorders

The central conflict of this novel is not a traditional external conflict, but rather an internal one, as Icy Sparks attempts to come to terms with her own mental disorder. For the most part, Icy is surrounded in her life, in both Poplar Holler and at the Bluegrass State Hospital, by supportive and caring people. However, Icy still feels a tremendous amount of shame related to her disorder, and judges herself with increasing harshness as she grows older. Note how, early in the novel, when Icy first introduces the nature of her disorder to the reader, she is not embarrassed or defeated by the symptoms: “Whenever it became too much, after hours or hoarding blinkings and poppings that threatened to burst out in a thousand grotesque movements, I’d offer to get Matanni a jar of green beans from the root cellar, a pantry-sized room...