Having finished the novel and numbered its table of contents, I have been forced to abandon the impression that this book contained exactly twenty chapters. I am at a loss.
In any case, I noticed a couple of lit terms in action again, I believe:
"From the sixth grade on they had known for a fact that someday they would be married, and live in a fine gingerbread house near Lake Erie, and have three healthy yellow-haired children, and grow old together, and no doubt die in each other's arms and be buried in the same walnut casket. That was the plan." - p. 90
I'm pretty sure that's both ironic and hyperbolic. First, O'Brien doesn't seem to be particularly close to Mark Fossie or Mary Anne Bell. He can't know the deepest, most desperate desires of their hearts.
Thusly, he's being verbally ironic. His intent is, I think, to mock the flamboyancy of their "love." When he says they planned to have three blond-haired babies together, he means that they've been together a long time, or it seems so, and theirs is the type of relationship in which he expects they might have had conversations regarding their potential future together. *deepbreath*
That's also a type of hyperbolizing. He's exaggerating their relationship to the point of near-mockery. Nobody really lives in a gingerbread house.
Additionally, I don't really know what "Greenies" are or what it means to be "out on ambush," as Mary Anne was.
Remember that O'Brien isn't telling this story
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