Other Voices, Other Rooms Coming of Age Quotes

Joel is at an in-between stage, and all the awkwardness of being thirteen can be encapsulated in his drink order. He wants a cold beer after having traveled on his own for days, which is a pretty grown-up thing to do, really. But Miss Roberta reminds him that, traveler or not, he's a kid and gives him a childish drink to match his age.

Joel expects that the knock on the door will be his father, and the way he responds reveals the way he wants to be perceived. The informal "Yeah" and the straightened-up manly pose mean that being mature is important to the kind of image he wants his father to have of him.

Keep in mind that this sentence, though it sounds pretty authoritative, is a scene from Joel's imagination. He fantasizes that his father has been spying on him and that, despite his attempts to make a manly impression, he doesn't size up. This is really just part of Joel's own self judging him, a part that he labels "father."

Zoo is older than Joel and, due to her horrific husband, is also much more experienced. Their conversation clues us in as to why it's so important for Joel to seem manly and grown up—maturity is linked to wisdom. If Zoo thinks he's too young to understand certain things, then he needs to show her that he's actually old enough to be her equal.

Just as above, when Joel insists that he's old enough to understand things, when he doesn't understand things he feels young. He's not sure how to take Randolph's comments, and that confusion knocks him into "boy-face" territory, reflected back from Randolph's eyes. It's as though, through the reflection, Joel could see himself as Randolph sees him: a little boy.

Joel isn't the only kid with something to prove around Skully's Landing. Florabel, too, seems to be modeling her entire persona after her mother, or even her granny. The way she talks, calling Joel "sir," and even the way she holds herself remind us that we learn how to be—how to be a kid, how to be an adult, how to be a man and/or a woman: by practicing.

The connection between belief and coming of age is kind of interesting here. When Florabel was a kid she just believed what her mother told her. Now that she's growing up, she starts to question the threats that adults make to keep kids in line. What's funny is that we know that Little Sunshine is real; Florabel is old enough to question the stories, but not quite mature enough to decide whether or not they're real.

Joel's hug attack seems innocent—he's a poor kid who recently lost his mother and has come to live in a house full of strangers. But Zoo recognizes the manly potential behind his hugs—she's old enough to know about that kind of thing, and compares him to a cat. Right now he's a kitten, but when he gets older he'll be a tomcat, which is a way of saying he'll be a player, basically.

Wait, what? The narrator is getting all philosophical on us. Why on earth would Joel, at age thirteen, be closer to death than any other year? This is a way of saying that "youth is wasted on the young." He is just old enough to start feeling as though he understands it all… but not old enough to start realizing how much he doesn't have a clue about.

Randolph prefaces his tale of violence, love, and control with this poetic disclaimer. The flowers in Joel's eyes are like his innocence. They're beautiful, but they also keep him from understanding everything he sees. But once they die, and their beauty is gone, he'll understand Randolph's entire crazy story.