Broken Country

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, child death, suicidal ideation, and addiction.

Broken Country portrays past events as persistent forces that continuously shape characters’ present realities. The novel’s structure itself reinforces this concept through alternating chapters set in different time periods, creating a narrative where memories and past relationships intrude upon current experiences. This approach suggests time as cyclical rather than linear, with past and present existing in constant interplay.

The relationship between Beth and Gabriel vividly illustrates how the past refuses to fade, continuing to affect every aspect of Beth’s life after Gabriel returns. Beth’s teenage romance with Gabriel, cut short by misunderstanding, continues to influence her life decades later. When Gabriel returns to Hemston with his son, Leo, unresolved feelings resurface for both of them. On seeing Gabriel again, Beth reflects, “There have been too many thresholds like this one, chances missed, turns not taken, and always the question burning between us, me and Gabriel, Gabriel and me, the life we might have had” (171). For Beth, the past exists alongside the present, coloring every interaction and even affecting her life with Frank.

Bobby’s death, which happens before the present timeline in the novel, continues to affect every aspect of Beth’s and Frank’s lives.