About Grace

“He called them dreams. Not auguries or visions exactly, or presentiments or premonitions. Calling them dreams let him edge as close as he could to what they were: sensations—experiences, even—that visited him as he slept and faded after he woke, only to reemerge in the minutes or hours of days to come.”

This description of the dreams that come to symbolize life and death, hope, and human connection for Winkler conveys how Winkler understands them himself. This ability to understand and appreciate the reality of his dreams is important going forward because part of what causes the main conflict in the plot is Sandy’s refusal to support him by accepting his interpretation of his dreams.

“Memory gallops, then checks up and veers unexpectedly; to memory, the order of occurrence is arbitrary. Winkler was still on an airplane, hurtling north, but he was also pushing farther back, sinking deeper into the overlaps, to the years before he even had a daughter, before he had even dreamed of the woman who would become his wife.”

This comment on memory becomes important as Winkler moves through his life and spends much time reflecting on the events that brought him to the place where he finds himself. Winkler often uses memory to explore ideas of motivation, purpose, and time. By relying on his memory to understand what’s happening in the present, Winkler explores the idea that time cycles and that experiences often reflect certain repetitions that he might learn from.

“The light seemed to bring a glaring clarity: the edges of clouds, the illumined leaves, early shadows playing beneath the trees—Ohio teemed with small miracles. Standing there some mornings he imagined he could glimpse the architecture of the entire planet, like an enormous grid underlying everything, perfectly obvious all along—the code of the universe, a matrix of light.

I have never, he thought, seen things so clearly.”

In the early days of his marriage to Sandy, Winkler finds contentment in the life they’re building together. His sense that he can see things clearly foreshadows his dream of his infant daughter’s death and his subsequent actions. This moment is significant because Winkler will never again see as clearly, either metaphorically or, as at the end of the novel, physically.