Chasing the Falconers

A central theme in Chasing the Falconers is the increasingly porous boundary between criminality and innocence. At the beginning of the novel, Aiden believes that he and his family are exceptional in their innocence—the only innocent parties among those who are deservingly incarcerated for their crimes. However, his and Meg’s escape from Sunnydale Farm transforms them into the outlaws they never intended to be, and breaking the law becomes an absolute necessity for their survival. In addition to having to rethink their own identities, Aiden and Meg must transform their views of Miguel, who they knew in Sunnydale as a bully convicted of manslaughter.

With their parents imprisoned and no relatives willing to take them in, Meg and Aiden suddenly find themselves in a hostile environment without support. They are forced to make criminal decisions in what Miguel would term an “unlucky” situation. Outside Sunnydale, Aiden understands that surviving means breaking the law: “If this is what it takes to survive as a fugitive, pretty soon our rap sheets will be twice as long as anybody else’s” (33). Aiden finds himself in a moral conundrum. He believes him and Meg to be good, law-abiding citizens whose “honesty [i]s what separate[s] them from people like Miguel” (69), yet as a fugitive, he must steal to survive.