The Accidental Tourist

“Ethan went away to camp when he was twelve—a year ago, almost exactly. Most boys started earlier, but Macon had kept delaying it. Why have a child at all, he asked Sarah, if you were only going to ship him off to some godforsaken spot in Virginia?”

This quote explains the timeline of Ethan’s death relative to when the book takes place. It also shows that Macon is still grappling with his guilt over allowing Ethan to go to the camp where he was later killed. Macon’s grief is still fresh, barely a year old, and he feels somewhat responsible for letting up on his firm stance against summer camp.

“He thought webbed canvas suitcase stands, ceiling sprinklers, and laminated lists of fire regulations approached and slid away and approached again, over and over all the rest of his days. He thought Ethan was riding a plaster camel and calling, ‘Catch me!’ and falling, but Macon couldn’t get there in time and when he reached his arms out, Ethan was gone.”

Macon has many dreams and dream-like sequences throughout the novel, but this one illustrates how his trauma from Ethan’s death seeps into his regular thought patterns when he allows his brain to roam freely. As his mind wanders through work-related items, he is unexpectedly bombarded by the image of letting Ethan down, failing to catch him as he falls, which represents the guilt and helplessness Macon feels regarding Ethan’s death.

“When he turned off the light in the bathroom, the sight of his laundry dripping over the tub reminded him of travel. Where was the real difference? Accidental Tourist at Home, he thought, and he slid wearily into his body bag.”

With Macon living alone in his marital house for the first time, he finds he’s grown distant from what it used to mean to him following his London trip. After spending days working through his travel routines, he feels he’s now a tourist in his own home, reflecting the theme of distance in the novel. Things are less familiar to him now that Sarah is gone, and his new behavior patterns at home, like doing the laundry in the shower, help to highlight this shift for Macon.

“When he thought about this now, it was a relief to remind himself that he did miss Sarah, after all. But then his relief seemed unfeeling too, and he groaned and shook his head and tugged his hair in great handfuls.”

After considering how his relationship with Sarah and those around him have played out over the years, Macon realizes he’s not one to miss people very often. Therefore, he feels relief when he recognizes that he does miss Sarah, but even the process he goes through to come to that conclusion feels cold to him, and he becomes frustrated with his emotional callousness. This quote adds key details to Macon’s characterization early in the novel. His frustrated reaction to the thought pattern shows he wishes to change himself.

“Lately, Macon had noticed he’d begun to view Sarah as a form of enemy. He’d stopped missing her and started plotting her remorsefulness. It surprised him to see how quickly he’d made the transition. Was this what two decades of marriage amounted to? He liked to imagine her self-reproaches. He composed and recomposed her apologies. He hadn’t had such thoughts since he was a child, dreaming of how his mother would weep at his funeral.”

Macon has changed since his separation from Sarah. As part of his grief about the end of the relationship, he has demonized Sarah and finds pleasure in imagining her regretting the decision to leave him. The complexities Macon experiences around his feelings for Sarah are comparable to those he felt towards his neglectful mother.

“In the portrait on the end wall, the Leary children gazed out with their veiled eyes. It occurred to Macon that they were sitting in much the same positions here this evening: […] Was there any real change? He felt a jolt of something very close to panic. Here he still was! The same as ever! What have I gone and done? he wondered, and he swallowed thickly and looked at his own empty hands.”

While sitting around the table playing the same card game he’s played with his siblings for years, Macon realizes how little he’s changed about himself and his life since then. With the dissolution of his relationship with Sarah, he has nothing to set him apart from the person he was in their childhood portrait. This quotation brings in the significance of portraits and photos as a representation of pieces of a person. Macon finds the scene in the portrait eerily familiar to the scene he sits in presently, and this realization disturbs him.

“Besides, Edward wasn’t a bad dog at heart—only a little unruly. He was sympathetic and he cared about Macon and plodded after him wherever he went. […] And he’d been Ethan’s.”

As Edward’s behavior declines, Macon is forced to face the real reasons he is so attached to Edward. Edward’s negative behavior symbolizes Macon’s grief, growing in intensity and affecting Macon’s life the more he neglects it. Macon tries to convince himself that Edward is a good dog, but he also acknowledges that Edward represents Ethan to him and losing Edward would be like losing the last parts of Ethan.

“‘You want a dog that bites all your friends? Scars neighbor kids for life? Gets you into lawsuits? You want a dog that hates the whole world? Evil, nasty, angry dog? That kills the whole world? […] Why, yes, I guess you do,’ she said.”

After Muriel’s rough treatment of Edward, Macon fires her. Knowing she is the only person willing to work with a dog like Edward, Muriel indicates that Macon is fine with having a dog that drives people away from him. In the novel, Edward represents Macon’s grief because Macon has only increased the distance between himself and others in the wake of Ethan’s death.

“Oh, he’d raged at her and hated her and entirely forgotten her, at different times. He’d had moments when he imagined he’d never cared for her to begin with; only went after her because everybody else had. But the fact was, she was his best friend. The two of them had been through things that no one else in the world knew of. She was embedded in his life. It was much too late to root her out.”

During his dinner with Sarah, Macon enters the night hoping that they will reconcile, and he can return to his married life with her. He’s moved past his resentment and realized Sarah's significant role in his life. The concept of being too late in life to change things comes up several times regarding Macon’s relationship with Sarah. For Macon, this idea comes quickly after their separation, but for Sarah, it takes distance for her to realize what she’s lost with Macon.

“It wasn’t the height; it was the distance. It was his vast, lonely distance from everyone who mattered. Ethan, with his bouncy walk—how would he ever know that his father had come to be trapped in this spire in the heavens? How would Sarah know, lazily tanning herself in the sunshine? For he did believe the sun could be shining wherever she was at this moment; she was so removed from him.”

With Macon high up in a skyscraper restaurant, far away from his home in Baltimore, he begins to recognize that he’s unreachable to the people he cares about most. Showing that Macon couldn’t recognize how much he’s grown apart from the people around him while he was near them contributes to the theme of how distance affects relationships. The inclusion of Ethan in this line of thought shows that Macon is still grappling with the idea that Ethan is no longer alive.

“He was too far gone to return. He would never, ever get back. He had somehow traveled to a point completely isolated from everyone else in the universe, and nothing was real but his own angular hand clenched around the sherry glass.”

There has been a shift in this thinking, from realizing that he’s distanced himself from everyone to a panic attack at the concept that he may never be able to recover from his isolation. Macon’s personality changes as he begins to allow more people into his life following his trip to New York, starting with Muriel. Once again, the theme of the effect of distance is emphasized here.

“I mean we used to make so much fun of the grown-ups. And Ethan was the funniest one; he could always get us to laugh. Then here we are, growing up ourselves. We wonder what Ethan would think of us, if he could come back and see us. We wonder if he’d laugh at us. Or if he’d feel...left out. Like we moved on and left him behind.”

Susan’s comments about Ethan help Macon understand that other people loved Ethan and miss him as much as he does. Susan reflects on growing older without Ethan, showing how loss ripples through a family, even when it isn’t apparent. Macon has spent much of the book up to this point not allowing others to share in his pain, but here he bonds with his niece over the loss of Ethan. This quote adds another facet to the ongoing theme of child loss.

“Macon couldn’t think of any way to tell her this, but the fact was he would never be able to make that dinner. He missed his wife. He missed his son. They were the only people who seemed real to him. There was no point looking for substitutes.”

After allowing Muriel back into his life, she begins to pursue more time with Macon. Over the last half of Chapter 10, she discusses him joining her and Alexander for dinner several times, but each time, Macon is unable to give her an answer. As the chapter closes, Macon grapples with the idea that he’d feel like he is replacing Sarah and Ethan if he opens the door for a relationship with Muriel and Alexander.

“I wonder if all this has only brought out the truth about us—how far apart we are. I’m afraid we got married because we were far apart. And now I’m far from everyone; I don’t have any friends anymore and everyone looks trivial and foolish and not related to me.”

Macon has a crucial moment of introspection for Macon. While he intended to tell Muriel that he could never have dinner with her, her tender reception of him causes him to open up about the way he feels disconnected from the world. Macon telling these things to Muriel signifies a bond he has yet to share with anyone else in the novel. This quote reflects the overall theme of emotional distance.

“And it seemed to him, as he sank back into his dreams, that she had as good as spoken aloud. About your son, she seemed to be saying: Just put your hand here. I’m scarred, too. We’re all scarred. You are not the only one.”

As Macon shares a bed with Muriel for the first time, she places his hands on her Caesarean scar. Macon interprets this as a message of their shared pain, showing how difficult it can be to have a child. This helps to highlight the parallels between Muriel’s motherhood and Macon’s fatherhood, with Macon rearing a healthy boy who died tragically and unexpectedly while Muriel rears a sickly boy who has fought for every moment of his life, beginning with his difficult and premature birth. Within this moment, Macon realizes that he does not have to be alone in his pain and that there are people who will understand him if he would just allow them to.

“It came to him very suddenly that every little roof concealed actual lives. Well, of course he’d known that, but all at once it took his breath away. He saw how real those lives were to the people who lived them—how intense and private and absorbing. He stared past Muriel with his mouth open. Whatever she had wanted him to look at must be long past by now, but still he went on gazing out her window.”

Throughout the novel, Macon struggles to see other people as real people. However, as he rides the plane with Muriel for the first time, his perspective on the lives of those around him changes. He has a moment of clarity where he realizes how complex and intricate the lives of the people below the plane are. This awareness marks an important shift in Macon’s outlook on those around him and directly results from Muriel’s influence.

“Then he knew that what mattered was the pattern of her life; that although he did not love her he loved the surprise of her, and also the surprise of himself when he was with her. In the foreign country that was Singleton Street he was an entirely different person. This person had never been suspected of narrowness, never been accused of chilliness; in fact, was mocked for his soft heart. And was anything but orderly.”

Macon has made changes in himself while living with Muriel. The reference to travel and tourism helps show that he still does not fully feel like he belongs on Singleton Street with Muriel, but he’s come to like the person he is when he’s around Muriel. Macon’s interest in patterns and habits is alluded to here, with the concept that Muriel’s unpredictability is still a pattern. Macon has gained perspective on both Muriel and himself while living on Singleton Street. 

“It was a snapshot stolen from her family album: Muriel as a toddler, clambering out of a wading pool. She meant, he supposed, to give him the best of her. And so she had. But the best of her was not that child’s Shirley Temple hairdo. It was her fierceness—her spiky, pugnacious fierceness as she fought her way toward the camera with her chin set awry and her eyes bright slits of determination.”

In the novel, portraits and photographs symbolize pieces of a person. Muriel has raved to Macon about how beautiful she used to be as a child, but when she gifts Macon a photo of her during this period of her life, Macon sees the same fierceness that she exhibits as an adult. He believes this photo represents the best of Muriel, not because she is a cute child, but because at that age, she was already the determined, unwavering person he knows her to be in the present. 

“She looks out hospital windows and imagines how the Martians would see us, Macon wanted to say. But Charles wouldn’t understand that, so instead he said, ‘I’m not such a bargain myself, in case you haven’t noticed. I’m kind of, you could say, damaged merchandise. Somebody ought to warn her away from me, when you get right down to it.’”

When Charles confronts Macon about his time with Muriel, Macon realizes that Charles would never understand what Muriel and Macon have. When Charles demands Macon tell him what is so special about Muriel, Macon diverts and instead discusses his value as a person, revealing how Macon feels disconnected from his brother and worthless because he’s damaged.

“It wasn’t even painful. Only disorienting, in a way, to see that everything continued no matter what. The student jeans were still stacked according to waist and inseam. The horsey tie pins were still arrayed behind glass. Ethan was dead and gone but Macon was still holding up shirts and asking, ‘This one? This one? This one?’”

While taking Alexander clothes shopping, Macon realizes how steadily time moves forward in the world around him. Despite not seeing a boys’ section in over a year, he is surprised to see how everything marches forward. Macon is not only realizing how life has continued to go on since Ethan’s death but also is beginning to accept it as he helps Alexander pick out clothes.

“When she stood in this kind of sunlight her eyes were so clear that it seemed you could see to the backs of them. He knew that from long ago. They might have been his own eyes; they were so familiar.”

As he stands across the aisle from Sarah, Macon feels the comfort of her familiarity. He’s grown as a person since they last saw one another, but he is enticed by the memories of her and the life he once shared with her. This familiarity lingers in Macon’s mind following Julian and Rose’s wedding, ultimately leading to his reconciliation with Sarah.

“Gazing out of the window, he all at once recalled Ethan as an infant. Ethan used to cry unless he was tightly wrapped in a blanket; the pediatrician had explained that new babies have a fear of flying apart. Macon had not been able to imagine that at the time, but now he had no trouble. He could picture himself separating, falling into pieces, his head floating away with terrifying swiftness in the eerie green air of Alberta.”

This quote provides a metaphor for how Macon feels about Sarah creeping back into his life. Her consistent calls while Macon is in Canada have shown that she harbors feelings for him and wants to rekindle their relationship. However, when Sarah directly alludes to these feelings, it creates a sense of breaking apart within Macon. He’s been in a relationship with Muriel that has helped him grow a lot, but he is tempted by the familiarity and comfort that Sarah brings. This temptation causes Macon to feel like he’s being broken or pulled in multiple directions.

“He reflected that he had not taken steps very often in his life, come to think of it. Really never. His marriage, his two jobs, his time with Muriel, his return to Sarah—all seemed to have simply befallen him. He couldn’t think of a single major act he had managed of his own accord.”

In this crucial introspective moment, Macon realizes he’s never made anything happen for himself or decided to do things independently. He’s only ever worked jobs that fell into his lap and dated people who approached him. This realization leads Macon to decide for himself regarding his relationships with Sarah and Muriel, ultimately leading him to choose to pursue Muriel.