The Family Cage of Quilla June

A Boy and His Dog

Traces Quilla June's entanglement in her own family, the father who sold her, the mother who sat by, and the hatred that made her a willing escapee.

increasing

Bearing strength in each event

decreasing

The Church-Going Home The Church-Going Home from "A Boy and His Dog". The Church-Going Home The House at Marigold Street Quilla June's home is the downunder's ideal: a picket fence, yellow shutters, a mother who serves strained…

The Church-Going Home from "A Boy and His Dog". The Church-Going Home The House at Marigold Street Quilla June's home is the downunder's ideal: a picket fence, yellow shutters, a mother who serves strained…

The Church-Going Home The House at Marigold Street Quilla June's home is the downunder's ideal: a picket fence, yellow shutters, a mother who serves strained smiles and a father who shouts prayers. The perfection is the punishment. The twin-bed cleanliness of the whole town is her prison architecture. The Hatred Careful She has learned to perform obedience, ribbons, folded hands, while storing grievances. The girl who volunteers for a seduction mission is already in flight from the Holmes household before she ever climbs the dropshaft.

The Father's Bargain The Father's Bargain from "A Boy and His Dog". The Father's Bargain The Silent Consent Ira's unhappy face at the Bureau is the father's consent to his daughter's prostitution-by-mission.

The Father's Bargain from "A Boy and His Dog". The Father's Bargain The Silent Consent Ira's unhappy face at the Bureau is the father's consent to his daughter's prostitution-by-mission.

The Father's Bargain The Silent Consent Ira's unhappy face at the Bureau is the father's consent to his daughter's prostitution-by-mission. He prays against the filth of solos while arranging for his daughter to bed one. The hypocrisy is total. The Daughter's Ledger Quilla June's later rage at her mother, and her complicity in her father's murder, are both legible as payment for this bargain. The family that sold her first cannot complain when she refuses to honor the sale.

The Room Where He Died The Room Where He Died from "A Boy and His Dog". The Room Where He Died The Pose of the Honest Whore The bedroom where Vic stages her naked on the bed is the inverse of the parlor's propriety: the daughter's…

The Room Where He Died from "A Boy and His Dog". The Room Where He Died The Pose of the Honest Whore The bedroom where Vic stages her naked on the bed is the inverse of the parlor's propriety: the daughter's…

The Room Where He Died The Pose of the Honest Whore The bedroom where Vic stages her naked on the bed is the inverse of the parlor's propriety: the daughter's body as weapon. She calls her father with a voice she does not have to fake, because she knows exactly what he desires. The Watching Vomit Her vomiting at the spatter is genuine horror, her body is not yet as ruthless as her will. The moment is the family's destruction in miniature: the daughter's horror at the father's death, and her immediate resumption of the escape.

The Rifle Against the Mother The Rifle Against the Mother from "A Boy and His Dog". The Rifle Against the Mother The Aimed Inheritance On the porch, Quilla June sights down at her scrawny mother, the woman who smiled through the sale of her…

The Rifle Against the Mother from "A Boy and His Dog". The Rifle Against the Mother The Aimed Inheritance On the porch, Quilla June sights down at her scrawny mother, the woman who smiled through the sale of her…

The Rifle Against the Mother The Aimed Inheritance On the porch, Quilla June sights down at her scrawny mother, the woman who smiled through the sale of her daughter. Vic slaps the shot aside; the mother dances sideways and keeps coming in the mob. The Unfinished Shot The missed shot is the story's quietest horror: a daughter so close to killing her mother that only a stranger's hand stops her. The family cage is closed by violence from within as much as from without.

The Orphan of the Wasteland The Orphan of the Wasteland from "A Boy and His Dog". The Orphan of the Wasteland The Free but Doomed By the time Quilla June reaches the surface, she is an orphan by choice: father dead by her lover's hand…

The Orphan of the Wasteland from "A Boy and His Dog". The Orphan of the Wasteland The Free but Doomed By the time Quilla June reaches the surface, she is an orphan by choice: father dead by her lover's hand…

The Orphan of the Wasteland The Free but Doomed By the time Quilla June reaches the surface, she is an orphan by choice: father dead by her lover's hand, mother nearly killed by her own. She has traded a family cage for an open grave. The Aimless Freedom Her final minutes are spent issuing ultimatums to a boy who has already chosen his dog. The girl who fled one family dies for a second one, and the wasteland buries her without a marker. The family cage, it turns out, was at least a shelter, freedom on the surface is lethal.

before the story, in Topeka

the Bureau's planning of the lure

the escape, at Ira's house

the business-district battle

the ending, before the fire