Character Analysis
At age fifteen, Slocum's daughter is already a lonely and disgruntled person. Slocum recalls with both fondness and sadness how happy she used to be when she was a child, but something happened that's made her miserable now.
What is that something? Slocum isn't sure, but he sees the signs. "She wants to be like other people her age. I cannot stop her; I cannot save her. Something happened to her, too, although I don't know what or when" (3.9). Slocum fears that his daughter's uniqueness is fading and that she, like him, is already lost.
Exchanges between Slocum and his daughter are rather sarcastic. "When she tells me she wishes she were dead, I tell her she will be, sooner or later" (4.6). Sometimes Slocum even wishes she would just run away from home already, because that would make things a heck of a lot easier.
She's not the most enlightening person to be around, so can we blame him for feeling this way?
One of his daughter's talents includes hating all three members of the household (not including Derek) simultaneously, and she is crafty at pitting her parents against each other. She's often very successful, of course, since they don't like each other, anyway. We're guessing she has several gold medals from talent shows.
Despite the resentment Slocum feels toward his daughter, he really worries about her. He doesn't want her to end up becoming like the types of girls he runs around with—and he knows she has the potential to become that. "She is much smarter than my wife, which means for one thing (unlike my wife, so far) that she will sleep with other women's husbands (and that she will not be overly impressed, for long, with her own)" (4.87).
It seems like in this world, all the women become unhappy in one of two ways: they're either unhappy wives, or they're unhappy mistresses. Something's got to happen to the Slocum girl to make her shape up before Slocum ships her out.
And then it happens.
The death of her brother is transformative for Slocum's daughter: she seems to pull herself back together, and she announces that she wants to attend college. Slocum confesses that once she leaves, she'll no longer be his responsibility. But at least she's got prospects for a somewhat happier life.
Maybe.