The Invisible Hour

Content Warning: This section discusses life in and escape from a cult, abortion, and suicidal ideation.

“They thought I only had a life that I lived here, but I had found other possibilities every time I read a book.”

Mia’s initial reference to literature reflects The Liberating Power of Literature. She is free to live beyond the Community even before she escapes because of her secret reading. Her comment also hints at the connection between literature and Choice’s Risks and Rewards: Reading opens up her imagination, revealing new possibilities to her that ultimately allow her to make the difficult choice of leaving the Community.

“Every time I had gone to town, I’d managed to sneak into the library. I knew there was magic there, and I knew they would do their best to destroy it.”

Mia’s early reflections on literature and the library continue to establish a dichotomy between the freedom that literature represents and the destructive power of the Community. Her conviction that there is “magic” in the library foreshadows the novel’s later magical twist when Mia will travel to the past thanks to a book she discovers at the library.

“She loved Thoreau for his rebellious thoughts, and the Brontës for their dark and tragic tales of love, and Toni Morrison, whose novels made her cry and feel as if she didn’t know the first thing about life.”

The Liberating Power of Literature is reflected in Ivy’s passion for literature early in her life. She finds freedom to feel and explore when she reads in the Boston Athenaeum. Ivy’s love of reading connects her to her daughter, whose initial characterization is also centered on literature.