Keeping 13

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-10

Chapters 11-25

Chapters 26-43

Chapters 44-52

Chapters 53-68

Chapters 69-82

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Themes

The Power of Love to Heal and Transform

Content Warning: The source text and this guide discuss emotional and physical abuse and substance use disorder.

Several characters in Keeping 13 deal with past emotional and physical abuse, lasting trauma, anxiety, physical injury, use disorders, and more, and these experiences impact their ability to move forward with their lives. However, through the support of friends, partners, and family members, they learn the importance of unconditional love in helping them heal and grow.

In their journey to confront and heal from their problems, Shannon and Johnny find help in their love for each other. Throughout the first part of the novel, Johnny constantly reaffirms Shannon’s thoughts and feelings. He encourages her to tell him how she feels and to make decisions for herself. As their sexual relationship advances, he repeatedly asks her for permission before moving any further, stopping multiple times, despite his feelings, to make sure that she is comfortable. He supports her in other ways as well: standing up to Marie and Darren, confronting her father, and saving her as well as her brothers from the fire at the novel’s climax. Shannon supports Johnny in turn: consistently reminding him that she has faith in his rugby ability and, more importantly, that she will love him whether he makes the National Team or not. As Johnny is overwhelmed by fear of what will happen with his injury, she reminds him that she loves “everything” about him—“especially the broken parts” (329)—a phrase that recurs as a motif in the novel to represent their love for each other. Shannon’s love and support allow Johnny to return to soccer on his own terms, knowing that he doesn’t need to win to be worthy of love. For Johnny and Shannon, their love is a key component in helping them deal with their hardships, move past their past traumas, and ultimately grow and heal together.

Joey also struggles throughout the novel, as he falls back into his substance use disorder when he is overwhelmed by the difficulties of his life. For Joey, two key characters show love for him and help him begin to heal: his girlfriend, Aoife, and Johnny’s mother, Edel. As Marie regresses back to her old self, unable to cope with her trauma and raise her family, Joey once again steps into the parental role in the Lynch household. He has never had a parental figure to guide him, having always been forced to assume the role of caretaker for his younger siblings. When he meets Edel, she reminds him that there is value in his life and that substances will only make his situation worse. At the conclusion of the novel, Joey has successfully completed rehabilitation and shows up at Tommen on the first day of school, a clear indicator that Mrs. Kavanagh has succeeded in helping him grow and find value in his education. Similarly, as Joey goes through his rehabilitation, he consistently pushes Aoife away: he breaks up with her, tells her not to come to his parents’ funeral, and refuses to see her as he suffers from withdrawals. However, through it all, Aoife ignores his demands, instead standing by his side as he breaks down at his mother’s gravesite and coming to his bedroom to hold and comfort him during his withdrawal. The love that these two characters show for Joey—one parental and one romantic—are key components in helping him heal and build a future for himself.

As Walsh explores the deep trauma and hardship experienced by these characters, love is an important component in allowing them to heal. It is seen in central characters like Shannon, Johnny, and Joey, as well as minor characters like Gibsie and Claire—as Claire helps Gibsie face the memory of his father and sister’s deaths. In the rest of the Boys of Tommen series, Walsh continues to examine Joey, Gibsie, and Hughie and the bonds they form to help them through their difficulties.

The Importance of Community

In Keeping 13, Walsh examines the importance of community as Johnny and Shannon begin to form friendships at Tommen, helping them through their struggles. For Shannon and her siblings, the traditional family is redefined as they are taken in by the Kavanaghs. Through these new bonds, Johnny, Shannon, and her family survive the difficulties they face in the novel.

Even though Darren, as the eldest Lynch sibling, often misunderstands his younger siblings’ needs, he becomes a key figure of support for the Lynch family. He leaves his husband in Belfast to stay with them, cares for his younger brothers, and provides support and structure for them so that they can stay out of foster care. Because he has been absent from the Lynch household for years, he lacks understanding of the degree to which Marie has hailed her children, and he initially fails to understand that Johnny is a force for good in Shannon’s life. Despite these shortcomings, however, he acts out of love for his family, and this love eventually leads him to recognize his mistakes. When Darren first returns to town, Shannon misjudges him just as he misjudges Johnny. Resenting his attempts to assume a parental role in her life, she fails to acknowledge that Darren has interrupted his life and returned to the scene of his abuse to protect his family. Though he acts as an unintentional antagonist in the love story between Shannon and Johnny, Darren is a source of support for the Lynch children, working with social services to ensure that they are fed, clothed, and going to school.

In addition to Darren, the Lynch children find new support in the form of Johnny and his parents. When Johnny finds Ollie, Tadhg, and Sean at home, unfed and with their mother in bed, his decision to take the children from their home reflects his desire to help them. He struggles to grasp the concept of children being neglected, as he has had the privilege of supportive parents and money; however, he uses that privilege to help the children, providing them not only with the necessities of food and protection but also with love and care.

After the deaths of Teddy and Marie, Mr. and Mrs. Kavanagh step in as guardians to the Lynch children. When Johnny goes away to play for the National team, his father speaks with him and explains that “it’s helping, Johnny. She’s healing […] She’s starting to thrive, son. They all are” (611). As Tadhg becomes less angry and violent, Sean begins to speak, and Shannon becomes healthier and attends counseling, the impact that the Kavanagh family has on the Lynch children is clear.

In addition to family support, friendship also plays a key role for both Shannon and Johnny. When Shannon goes back to school for the first time, she spends the entire morning hiding in the bathroom, afraid to face her classmates and teachers after what her father did. However, Claire and Lizzie—her two best friends—come and find her. For the rest of the day, Lizzie goes with her to her classes, as Shannon notes that “Lizzie had melded herself to my side. […] When the final bell rang at 4:00 p.m. […] I was feeling warily optimistic. Like maybe I could do this after all. Like maybe I could actually get my life back on track” (221). Claire and Lizzie support Shannon, helping her deal with the trauma she has just experienced.

Similarly, Johnny finds support not only through Claire and Lizzie but also through his other friends Gibsie and Hughie. When Johnny finds himself unable to grapple with his own grief and Shannon’s after Teddy and Marie die, he turns to his friends, who come over and help him rebuild the symbolic tree house in the backyard. They work without asking Johnny questions or pressuring him to talk, instead just being there to support him and distract him from his guilt. Additionally, after Johnny, Shannon, and all their friends go camping, Johnny realizes how much he has been missing from focusing his entire life on rugby. When deciding about his rugby contract, he explains to his father:

[I]t’s mostly about me. About who I am and where I fit—and I need more time to do that. I didn’t pay enough attention to my life. I didn’t experience any of the stuff I now realize that I want to experience. I got a small stab at it, a few short months, and now it’s gone (614).

For Johnny, his friends are a key part of what makes him happy. While rugby has always been the primary piece, he now realizes that friendship offers him a lot of what he has been missing.

In the final pages of the novel, Shannon walks through the halls of Tommen. She first sees her friends—Claire, Lizzie, Gibsie, and more—then Walsh slowly reveals who else is at Tommen through her perspective: Johnny calls her, then she sees Tadhg walking through the halls in his uniform, then finally she sees Joey. These revelations emphasize the impact that friendship and family have had on all the characters throughout the text.

The Lasting Impact of Trauma

Using Shannon and Johnny’s alternating point of view, Walsh examines the lasting effects of physical and emotional trauma. When the novel opens, both characters are introduced through nearly parallel scenes: Both have suffered physical injury, both are recovering in hospital beds, and both feel anxiety about the immediate future. While Shannon is given the news that her physical injuries are healing but her father is missing, Johnny is told that he will miss several weeks of practice and will be lucky to recover in time to try out for the National Rugby Team. Throughout the novel, Walsh uses italic font to convey their inner thoughts and anxieties—part of the continuing impact of their traumas. For example, as Johnny drinks on his birthday camping trip, his slurred speech brings Shannon’s father’s words to her mind: “What’s wrong with ya, girl? What’s fucking wrong with you now? Go to sleep now, Shannon. Just close your eyes and it’ll all be better in the morning” (583). Even after her father has died, and Shannon has become more comfortable with herself and begun to deal with her trauma, she continues to experience fear and anxiety.

Shannon’s mother, Marie, is unable to escape the lasting effects of trauma. After her abusive husband is gone, she turns into a “shell” of herself. In what little dialogue she has in the novel, she forces Johnny away from Shannon and insists that he is going to turn into Teddy someday; the rest of the time, she is seen smoking, taking pain medication, and staring into nothing. While this establishes Marie as an antagonist in the novel—not fulfilling the parental role that Shannon and her siblings need—her antagonistic role is not intentional. She loves her children and wants the best for them, but her trauma prevents her from supporting them effectively.

In contrast to Marie, Teddy is a one-dimensional, archetypal villain in the novel, a source of trauma in the lives of others. He is a flat character, with nothing known about his past or his feelings. No reason is ever given for his abuse—other than his abuse of Darren due to his sexuality—and he never makes any effort to redeem himself. When Johnny confronts him, he shows his true cowardice: He makes no effort to stand up to Johnny, instead turning his insults on Shannon, thereby establishing his weakness and tendency to prey only on those who can’t fight back. All these facts serve to exemplify the true impact that what he has done to Shannon and the Lynch family: Even though he is largely absent and weak, he continues to impact the family. For example, Darren’s insistence that Shannon stay away from Johnny is fueled largely by his fear that Teddy is still out somewhere. Ultimately, Darren, Shannon, Marie, and Joey do what they can to get their father out of their lives, but his lifelong abuse has caused them so much trauma that they struggle to heal long after he is gone.

Despite everything the characters in the novel have been through, the final pages of the text provide hope for their recovery. Joey has been through rehabilitation and returns to school, Shannon is seeing a therapist and growing in her self-confidence, and Johnny has recognized that rugby is not the most important thing in his life, making his success or failure only a small part of who he is.