Chapter Twenty–seven: Alcatraz – A Family Confronts Its Past and Its Fears

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens before dawn as Opal drives her Ford Bronco with Jacquie and the three boys toward the ferry to Alcatraz for a sunrise ceremony. Memories of the 1970 occupation surface for the two women, tied to their mother’s cancer, Jacquie’s rape, and her lost daughter. On the ferry, Lony and Jacquie discuss belief, flying, and the meaning of feathers, with Lony pressing Jacquie on what she used to be. Lony later climbs the island’s water tower, prompting Orvil to scale it after him. At the top, Lony balances on the rail, claiming he was “seeing something” and that he was going to fly. He speaks of the Cheyenne as “cut people” and says he felt as though someone had died – referring to Orvil’s earlier near‑death. Orvil talks him down, and Lony asks whether it took him climbing the tower for Orvil to check on him.

Key Events

The family wakes early and drives to catch the Blue and Gold ferry to Alcatraz for the sunrise ceremony.
Opal and Jacquie remember being on the island during the 1970 occupation, connecting it to personal traumas.
On the ferry, Lony tells Jacquie about soaring birds, wind turbines, and the Bering Strait theory, exploring ideas of belief and transformation.
Opal removes her beanie, revealing her bald head from chemotherapy, and speaks cryptically about not wanting to “do it again.”
During the ceremony, a speaker acknowledges the Ohlone land and criticizes the forgetting of non‑federally‑recognized tribes.
Lony wanders away from the group and climbs the water tower; Orvil follows him up the crosshatched poles.
At the top, Lony stands on the rail, almost falls in a gust of wind, and tells Orvil he was going to fly.
Lony describes the Cheyenne as “cut people” and explains he felt a death when Orvil almost died.
Orvil promises a trip to Namibia; Lony asks if his climb was the only way to get Orvil’s attention.

Character Development

Orvil: Shows protective maturity by climbing after Lony without hesitation. He tries to keep a calm tone and distract Lony with a future trip, revealing his deepening sense of responsibility for his brothers.
Lony: His conversation with Jacquie and his water‑tower stunt reveal a boy trying to recapture a form of belief – “we used to be the whole bird.” He is wrestling with grief over his own and his brother’s mortality, and with a desire to be seen.
Jacquie: Engages Lony’s philosophical questions but deflects from her own pain, using humor and cynicism. Her memory of climbing the water tower as a teen links her past to Lony’s present.
Opal: Removes her beanie publicly, signaling her vulnerability. Her cryptic remark about déjà vu and refusal to “do it again” suggests her fear of reliving family trauma.

Themes, Symbols, and Motifs

Flying as faith: Both Lony and Jacquie discuss whether birds “believe” they can fly. Lony’s line “we used to be the whole bird” points to a lost capacity for unselfconscious belief that he associates with Native heritage.
Feathers and prayer: Jacquie explains feathers as carriers of prayers to God, linking birds to the spiritual. Lony later says “we’ve just been the feather” – reduced to a fragment of a once‑whole power.
The cut people: Lony recounts that the Plains sign for Cheyenne means “cutting” (a grief gesture). This motif ties historical trauma to personal loss and the fragmentation of identity.
Alcatraz as layered memory: The island is not only a symbol of occupation but a repository of painful family history – cancer, rape, adoption, relapse.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter dramatizes the novel’s central tension between inherited grief and the impulse toward transcendence. Lony’s near‑jump from the water tower echoes Orvil’s own brush with death in Chapter 22 and forces the family to confront the weight of unspoken trauma. The ferry conversation and the ceremony ground the scene in Native cultural revival while questioning what belief even means for a generation raised on the internet. Lony’s final question – “Is that all it took?” – indicts the family’s pattern of only responding to crises, and sets up a reckoning in the chapters ahead.

Study Questions and Answers

What does Lony mean when he says “we’ve just been the feather”? Lony suggests that contemporary Native people have lost the full, self‑assured belief of their ancestors – they are a fragment (a feather) when they used to be the whole bird, capable of flight and spiritual power.
How does Opal’s line “We really can’t do it again” connect to her personal history? Opal is referring to repeating the cycle of loss and trauma: her mother’s cancer relapse, Jacquie’s assault, and her own fears about the boys continuing a pattern of harm. The island itself triggers these memories of what she cannot bear to relive.
Why does Lony bring up the Cheyenne being called “cut people”? He is connecting the traditional gesture of cutting as mourning to his own feeling that something – or someone – died when Orvil almost did. His research into Cheyenne sign language is a search for a language to express personal grief that feels otherwise unspeakable.