A Literary Analysis Of 'An Invisible Thread'

Since the last time I journaled, I have started reading the book An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski and am currently on page 137. This book is a true story written from Laura’s point of view about the relationship that formed between her and Maurice. They met while Laura was walking to work one morning; Maurice was a homeless, eleven year old panhandler who asked her for money one day. Instead of giving him money, Laura decided to take him out to lunch. They continued to meet every week after this and ended up becoming great friends. While reading this book, I have been observing the major conflicts, Maurice’s life at home, Laura’s childhood, and the relationship between Maurice and Laura. When Maurice and Laura first
Laura struggled in school, never went to college, and had troubles at home with her father. Laura and her family had a normal life when she was growing up. She had four siblings, and her mother and father were together and both held stable jobs. To everyone else they looked like a normal happy family. But when her father got home from his job as a bartender, he was a completely different person. He drank throughout his shift every day and came home late at night drunk and angry. Although he never hit the children, he hit his wife and verbally abused his children every night. He was the hardest on Laura’s little brother, Frankie: “…Frank would be sound asleep, and my father would appear in his bedroom… He would scream and curse at the boy, as if Frank were a man he held some mortal grievance against…five minutes of yelling. Ten minutes. It seemed like it would never end” (Schroff and Trensniowski 77-78). When their father was sober, he was the perfect dad. He loved his kids and treated them well. But once he drank, he turned into a monster that everyone in the family got used to fearing. This created conflict because the children never knew which mood their father would be in. The last conflict present in this novel was the relationship between Maurice and
She was constantly in conflict with herself over whether or not what she was doing to help this boy would be seen as inappropriate and wrong. Laura’s friends and family were also apprehensive at first when she informed them about Maurice and their weekly visits; they were all worried for her safety. This boy came from a family of drug dealers and criminals, they didn’t know if they should trust him spending so much time with Laura. Even though everyone was telling her differently, Laura had a gut feeling that what she was doing was right: “I had only known Maurice for a couple of months at that point, but I already knew he would be in my life for a long, long time. I just knew that in my heart” (Schroff and Tresniowski 97). Even throughout Laura’s internal conflict with their relationship and her friends and family’s apprehension, Maurice and Laura’s bond was unbreakable. During the last week I have been reading An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski, and I have been observing the conflicts in Maurice’s family, Laura’s family, and in the relationship between the two. I am really enjoying this novel. It is beautifully written and I love how it is from Laura’s point of view looking back on their relationship. It’s one of those books that makes you want to go out and do a random act of kindness towards someone. I think I deserve a 10 out of 10 because I included