Miró from the name of the chapter refers to the Spanish artist Joan Miró. He is known for his work in the genre of surrealism.“Miró, Miró, on the wall… who’s the deadest of them all?” pg. 112 has the same structure as the known phrase, “Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” from Snow White. It has a connection to the death of Claire’s son Joshua, her grief and difficulty to accept the truth. She wants to get a reflection of her perspective from others to support her.
The story of Corrigan comes first in the book. This automatically makes me more inclined to find out more about the events which relate to the first set of characters. Having heard of Corrigan’s and Jazzlyn’s fatal car crash from the perspective of Ciaran, made the intersection between Ciaran and Lara worthy of a mention. Tracing back to the time of the crash, Lara’s perspective on her relationship with Blaine changes by seeing him care more about the damage done to his car than the fact that the accident he was responsible for resulting in the death of two people.
Filled with guilt, Lara goes to the hospital, picks up Corrigan’s belongings and goes off to Ciaran. She accompanies him to Jazzlyn’s funeral and they later drive to a bar. Despite seeing the damaged car, Ciaran does not reject talking to her as he sees honesty and regret within Lara. She lied at first, saying that she was the driver due to the embarrassing reaction of Blaine to the accident. But as they talked more, she confessed that she was not the driver.
List of characters (known intersections: more than fifty-five since I am sure that I missed some): tightrope walker Philippe, Corrigan, Jazzlyn, Lara, Ciaran, Blaine, Gloria & other mothers, Tillie, Solomon, Fernando, Adelita, computer hackers, Claire.
Your explanation of why Claire used that quote is really insightful. I also found the Ciaran and Lara intersection very interesting and agree with how you described Lara as feeling guilty and her change of view on Blaine.