A Scatter Of Light

“Haley was saying something and leaning toward Tasha, one hand outstretched. Tasha was looking at her through her oversized sunglasses, so I couldn’t see her eyes, but there was a weird stiffness to her face. I wondered if they’d had a fight.”

Aria notices the dynamic shift between Haley and Tasha but doesn’t think much of it at the time. This moment foreshadows Tasha’s coming out; Aria sees fragments of their secret relationship but pieces it all together only in hindsight after she begins questioning her own sexuality.

“Somehow the fact that he had managed to get my shirt off made him someone the other guys looked up to, but the fact that I had taken my shirt off made me a slut.”

Aria experiences firsthand the double standard of sexual activity for boys versus girls. Jacob not only receives no consequences for his wrongful actions but is even celebrated among other boys. Aria, on the other hand, is shamed both publicly and privately, and this unfair blow to her reputation costs her the summer plans she’d made with friends. The expository details of the photo incident provide insight into why Aria so resents coming to California for the summer.

“And I definitely didn’t have the resources to summer on Martha’s Vineyard without their charity. They always made me feel like a guest in their homes, but as a guest, I was easily uninvited.”

Throughout her childhood, Aria struggled to fit in with her wealthy friends in Wellesley and yearned for a closer relationship with her mother. Although Haley and Tasha’s parents were generous and gracious, their rescinded invitations to Martha’s Vineyard demonstrated that they prioritized their own reputations over supporting their daughters’ friend through a difficult time.

“This conversation with Steph about my grandmother was the least sexy topic I could imagine, but inside me I felt a tiny unfurling, as if a tender green shoot were turning toward the sun.”

Aria’s first one-on-one conversation with Steph introduces the important sub-conflict of Joan’s memory loss. It characterizes Steph as someone who cares deeply about others, as she goes out of her way to help Joan beyond her gardening job. The language that Lo chose for this simile implies that the seed of Aria’s sexuality has been there all along, and it just takes the right person (in this case, a literal gardener) to nurture its growth.

“And now she was here, in this community who knew her better than I did. I felt uncomfortable and thrilled by this revelation all at once, as if I’d discovered a stranger inside someone I loved.”

The more time she spends with Joan, the more Aria realizes what a gift her summer in Woodacre is. She gets to know Joan on a deeper level as an artist and witnesses her in her everyday communities. Without knowing that this would be her last visit with Joan, Aria develops a fuller picture of Joan as a person outside of her role as a grandmother.

“I was captivated by that imagined image: the diver hanging in mid-water as if suspended between past and future, as if trying to make a choice.”

The diver from Adrienne Rich’s poem “Diving into the Wreck” captures the feeling of suspension that many of the novel’s characters experience. Aria, Steph, Joan, Tasha, and Aria’s parents have all had to make significant choices that have implications for their futures. The book itself connects Aria to her past (her father, whose book she finds) and her future (Steph, who shares another Adrienne Rich book with Aria). The image Aria visualizes is what spurs her to start painting, an important step in her journey of becoming an artist. Adrienne Rich and Bernice Bing were real lesbian artists to whom Lo directly alludes to ground the story in modern-day queerness.

“The day I found that article I had been angry at my mom for something she’d said to me over the phone [...] When I read the Globe interview, though, I was so proud of her it hurt.”

When she was 12, Aria found a Boston Globe interview with her mother while she was starring as Carmen. In the interview, Alexis advocates for “color-blind” casting because being Chinese shouldn’t keep her from popular roles. Aria’s relationship with her mother is often fraught, but this moment shows Aria’s deeper feelings. The fact that Matthew saved the article after the divorce teaches Aria that it’s possible to love someone and celebrate their achievements even if the romantic relationship has ended.

“And then I knew what I wanted to tell her, and before I could lose my nerve I said, ‘I don’t think I’m straight.’”

Steph is the first person Aria comes out to. Her acknowledgement is cautious, demonstrating the uncertainty she still feels. This admission is pivotal in the relationship she’s building with Steph and prompts her to start exploring art as a young adult. Aria continues to learn more about the spectrums of sexuality and gender, and she never claims a specific label for herself.

“‘What if what your heart desires hurts someone else?’ Steph asked.

‘Sometimes you can’t avoid that,’ Joan said, ‘because people have feelings, and other people’s feelings aren’t always congruent with ours.’”

Steph and Joan have a serious conversation about pursuing art, but their conversation foreshadows the turmoil that follows Aria and Steph’s secret relationship. Steph’s desire to pursue music full-time and her desire for Aria ultimately cost her both Lisa and Aria. Prioritizing art over a relationship is a familiar experience for Aria, as Alexis prioritized her opera career over being a present mother.

“‘I want things to change between us,’ she said [...]. ‘Before, I had to make sure I could pay all my bills, but now I can make sure you have the best life possible.’”

Aria’s lunch with Alexis marks a pivotal point in their mother-daughter relationship. By offering to help pay for Aria’s college tuition, Alexis is making a concerted effort to be more present and supportive in Aria’s life. Aria initially remains skeptical and uncertain, but her patience and understanding grow with each future phone call.

“They probably all thought I was queer, and when I realized this I felt a thrill, as if a mask I’d put on had suddenly become my real face.”

From the start of her time in California, Aria pays particular attention to how her new queer friends dress and present themselves. She crafts a particular outfit for Roxy’s party to make her look “less straight,” and is pleased with the results. This feeling of fitting in differs from her experiences with Wellesley and Martha’s Vineyard friends because in this new queer community, she finally feels like her most authentic self.

“Her face was barely lit in the shadowed room, but I didn’t need to see every detail to recognize what she was feeling. It seemed palpable in the air between us. Inevitable. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I only want you.’ I felt as if I’d lit myself on fire [...] I didn’t feel like I was standing on firm ground until her mouth met mine.”

Steph and Aria’s first kiss marks the transition of their emotionally intimate relationship becoming physical. Lo’s use of dramatic language and similes highlights Aria’s intense desire and emphasizes the emotional experience of a young first love.

“I was such a fraud. Not only an Asian fraud, but a lesbian fraud, too. I had no idea what I was doing.”

After Steph expresses regret for their kiss, Aria feels self-conscious about her identity. This is one of the few moments when Aria acknowledges the disconnection from her Chinese heritage and doubts her queerness too. In addition, it echoes her doubts as an artist, when she has no idea what to paint.

“She spoke quietly, her eyes downcast. ‘We were together. Haley and me. But we broke up.’ I wasn’t sure if I’d heard her correctly.”

When Tasha finally reveals why she suddenly needed to leave Martha’s Vineyard, Aria sees all the subtle signs of their relationship history clearly. Before her summer in Woodacre, talking about queerness or sexuality wasn’t something Aria did with her friends, but Tasha’s coming out opens the doors for a new level of honesty. This allows Aria and Tasha’s friendship to grow even stronger as they support each other in their journeys to self-discovery.

“‘An abstract painting is like excavating your emotions,’ she said. ‘It’s not an easy slap-it-on-the-canvas thing. There are layers to get through before you can uncover what it’s about.’”

Frustrated with her stagnant painting process, Aria turns to Joan for advice. The seriousness with which Joan approaches Aria’s piece demonstrates how supportive she is of Aria’s artistic journey and how aware she is of Aria’s search for identity. Despite the painful end to her summer, Aria continues to create art, and 10 years later she finally finds closure with this first painting.

“I’d never seen my grandmother like this before: weak-bodied, limbs flaccid, as if whatever made her who she was had vanished. I felt helpless.”

Joan’s confusion, memory loss, and recent sickness all foreshadow her stroke. Aria spends her summer trying to fit in with an older crowd and not wanting to be seen as a child; having to help Joan in this emergency thrusts Aria into sudden adult responsibility. The abruptness of Joan’s stroke and then death are a difficult lesson for Aria in impermanence and accepting things beyond her control.

“After a few minutes I asked, ‘What did you mean, ‘ladies first’? You don’t think of yourself as a lady?’

‘I’m definitely not a lady.’”

This dialogue marks the first time that Steph acknowledges her gender identity, and while she doesn’t verbally confirm it, her reaction to Aria’s later question suggests that she’s genderqueer. Aria’s time in Woodacre exposes her not only to various sexualities and relationship types but also to the spectrum of gender identity. Despite its being an unfamiliar concept, Aria accepts Steph’s expression fully, demonstrating a willingness and eagerness to learn.

“Through the viewfinder, Joan’s flipped image floated, mirage-like, on the speckled focusing screen, as if the camera were a door to a different time and place.”

Aria and Joan have reversed roles in this scene, and Aria is behind the camera for the first time—marking another step in her journey to becoming an artist and learning from Joan. Joan describes her art as being about time, and Aria starts to learn for herself how she can capture passages of time through art. The “mirage-like” quality of Joan’s image foreshadows her sudden death, which occurs the morning after this photo is taken.

“The world disappeared, and there was only this connection between us, so real it felt like a physical creature, ravenous. All we could do was feed it. And then like an ax shattering glass, Lisa’s voice behind us: ‘What the fuck are you doing?’”

In the denouement of the story, Lo uses visceral, violent language to convey its intensity. Aria and Steph’s secret relationship was tenuous and fragile from the start, and like shattered glass, its destruction is explosive and has the potential to hurt everyone. Lisa’s sudden confrontation creates a feeling of whiplash, immediately bursting the “bubble” that Aria had been so desperate to stay in.

“I remembered Joan saying Your mother is an artist, and for a split second the connection between Joan, my mother, and me seemed crystal clear, revelatory. I knew I should understand who they were and who I was and why all this had happened—but the moment vanished as quickly as it came […]”

Amid the disorienting grief of Joan’s death, this moment of clarity demonstrates that Aria is beginning to see herself among the lineage of artists in her family. The artists in this novel all share a deep, inherent understanding of one another—and the desire to create. This ephemeral realization foreshadows Aria’s future in the art world.

“Guilt is a shape-shifter. It can fester like a sore, burning for attention, or it can lurk like a beast in the dark, always there but never clearly visible [...] Sometimes I hope it will never go away.”

Aria feels remorse and guilt for causing Lisa pain but doesn’t regret her actions with Steph. This fragment of reflection stands alone as its own short chapter, reflecting Aria’s isolated experience when everything has fallen apart. Instead of a “happy ending” for Aria and Steph, Lo captures the messy, complicated, all-consuming, and often contradictory emotions of an affair.

“‘Promise me you’ll keep an eye on him,’ Mom said. ‘He’s not like you and me [...] We get things done when we have to. Make sure he gets something to eat besides coffee.’ How had she known he wasn’t eating?”

As Aria starts to try to heal her relationship with her mother, she notices the way her parents still love and care for one another. In this conversation, Alexis intuitively knows that Aria is compartmentalizing her difficult emotions while Matthew struggles to take care of himself, demonstrating an awareness that surprises Aria.

“I zoomed in on Lily’s and Kath’s faces, feeling an unexpectedly vivid connection to them both, as if I could sense the love between them glowing like a radiant sun. After so many years, they could show their love to the world at last.”

Aria’s distant relative is Lily Hu, a character that connects Lo’s novels Last Night at the Telegraph Club (2021) and A Scatter of Light (2022). For the first time, Aria feels a concrete connection to a Chinese American queer family member. Having discovered her sexuality in a time and place where queerness is more culturally accepted, this connection to Lily offers Aria an opportunity to reflect on the sacrifices that generations of queer people have had to make for Aria to have a validated and less fearful coming out.