After the Falls

a) As an impressionable youth, Cathy is inspired by her parents and the family's happy existence in the small town of Lewiston. Their ultimate bonding comes from the family department store and traditions they follow, and throughout the novel, we see Cathy develop traits specific to each parent: the patience and sensibility of her mother, and the passion and resilience of her father. Although their relationships weren't without troubles, Cathy values the influence each had on her life, and remembers the times she needed them for assistance.

The donnybrook in Chapter 2 is an example of how much her father valued his relationship with Cathy. She hardly does anything wrong, but his clear concern about losing her to "every Tom, Dick, and Harry" (25) is endearing. He has difficulty dealing with her normal teen angst as well as the relocation to Buffalo, but aids her in making educated decisions. His idea to put dimes in her loafers in case of an emergency turns out to be critical, and even more admirable is that he never criticizes her for having to call him at an unseemly hour. However, as usual, she can't escape from criticizing his strange mannerisms: "No one knew I had a father that sang along with popular music. How embarrassing was that?" (142) Soon after, she finds out that he has cancer, and her outlook on life changes dramatically.

The final pages in the novel provide a passage that summarizes her admiration for her parents: "He'd lost some frontal lobe, some memory, some intellectual functioning, but his automatic system hadn't yet been hit. And even with all the chemo and radiation he'd had, he never complained." (323) Cathy is always determined to take on challenges and will never forget the impact that her father had on her life, which makes the conclusion of the novel altogether fitting. Cathy fails to cultivate the same relationship with her mother, but repeats some of the little things crucial to her upbringing: "Through ridiculous high school hijinks, the black lawn jockeys, my refusal to do school work, the calls from the guidance centre, the fire at the doughnut shop, she was always behind me, never wavering in her belief in me." (324)

b) A few particular pop culture references or events appear to have had the greatest impact on Cathy's life. Early on, Gildiner does an exceptional job in framing The Beatles' appearance on national television in 1964. "I told her that the Beatles coming to America was history in the making. Even Walter Cronkite had said that." (109) It's understandably difficult to imagine what it would've been like seeing the greatest band in history on a television screen in the sixties, but Cathy shows a love for music that can be traced back to this early experience.

Seeing Buffalo Springfield live may have been a more intense encounter, as the band captured the aura of rebellion. Even Cathy explains, "It was as though these lyrics were perfectly describing the last six months of my life." (189) The anti-establishment attitude brought about by the Vietnam War was spurred by music, and Cathy mentions the following lyrics that set the stage for some of the conflicts she would be a part of: "Paranoia strikes deep, into your life it will creep, it starts when you're always afraid, you step out of line, the man come and take you away." (190)

Laurie Coal, Cathy's African-American boyfriend, plays an instrumental role in her involvement with civil rights issues of the time. "Laurie came down most weekends and together we got involved in civil rights demonstrations and worked for the [NAACP]." (264) She has a firm sense of morals, and is shocked at the assassination of Martin Luther King. Her passion for welfare and helping others is supported by her experiences in riots of the time. Ultimately, popular culture helps her gain an understanding of herself and allows her to grow as an individual.

c) Usually, the sections in memoirs involving work life tend to be filler or are used for exposition. Cathy's life, however, seems anything but ordinary. Working in a family-run drug store, she is immediately exposed to the positive influence of a work environment, and her ambition is always high when seeking employment. "Nothing was complicated back then... I felt loved by everyone and all I knew was the joy of working hard and marvelling at the beauty around us." (29) The Dunk is arguably the most dear to Cathy's heart, simply because she was able to learn about working-class America. After being shocked at moving to a lower-quality house, she can't believe how difficult the lives of others are. She also takes into consideration some of the smaller pleasures in life: "Although the Dunk had its drawbacks in terms of a mean boss who exploited everyone, I learned there how hauntingly beautiful the dawn could be... You can do a whole day's thinking between the hours of 4 and 7 a.m." (94)

Cathy's life is incidentally quite dramatic. After being hired a short order cook, fired because of her inability to make the simplest of menu items, and being rehired as a hostess (the highest paying job in the restaurant), she unknowingly encounters Howard Johnson. Being an excellent hostess, she lures him into buying a better cut of beef, and has an excellent conversation with him. "Howard Johnson was a nice guy, and the best part was he really liked me. He thought it was great how I had talked him into a more expensive meal. He even approved of me sending the overflow to the next Howard Johnson down the pike." (129)

After reluctantly accepting a job with New York State Welfare, Cathy comes to the unfortunate realization that no one in the organization cares. For a while, she abides by the system of doing nothing, but her compassion could only be restrained for so long. Eventually, she grows to know less-fortunate individuals, such as Flaps, and begins to care about her position. "It was then that I conceived the idea. I realized that I couldn't reform the welfare system before I went back to school, but what I could do was disrupt its present stagnation." (207) I've found in the past that it feels easy to withhold your desire to create change in an apathetic environment, and Cathy should be commended for improving the lives of others.

d) Cathy's friendship are pivotal, beginning with Roy, the driver at McClure's Drugs. After the incident at church, she brings back memories of her friend as she "began to tell him of all that had happened since moving. It poured out: the ugliness of the neighbourhood, the tiny house, the four-lane highways and the restaurants where the unhappy worked and the unhappier ate." (30) Roy is a symbol of her growth, as she smokes with him in spite of her parents' disapproval.

Fran Stephens and Cathy become unlikely friends, as while Cathy tries to navigate junior high in a new town, "hit the dirt" has mastered everything up to the vice-principal's speeches. They have a strong friendship, but will always share a bond after the brutal rape they witness her brothers committing. Cathy is so appalled and disturbed by what she sees that she "vowed then that I'd rather be thought of as anything-- cruel, unpopular, you name it-- than be dismissed and humiliated as Veronica had been." (61) Although the mission does not end as successfully as Cathy desires, Fran also gathers the courage to join her on her "Black Lawn Jockeys Mission."

Aside from Cathy's father, Kip Rogers is the source of the only male friendship that she could sustain prior to Laurie Coal. "Girls loved Kip, but as a result of the Donny Donnybrook and the Veronica episode, I had become immune to that kind of thing, so we just had fun together. He was one of those rare boys you could manage a friendship with." (64) They keep in touch throughout his entire life, which is cut short after his death in the Vietnam War, which was certainly a trigger, so to speak, in Cathy's interest in the political atmosphere of the time. Without a doubt, the toughest moment in After the Falls, along with Cathy's father's cancer diagnosis, is when Kip dies in Vietnam. "Doc lined up two shots of whisky for everyone at the bar. Doc, always a spokesman, held up his glass, and did a slow 360-degree turn with his drink held high in the air until everyone in the whole bar was silent." (248) Kip, Fran, and Roy are just a few of the examples of friendship that contributed to Cathy's understanding of herself.