History Literature / HeartsInAtlantis

* DraftDodging: The characters in the title story try to do this (though, of course, a student deferment isn't ''technically'' draft dodging).

** Willie looks at a picture of his family and sees his father smiling "like he'd never pushed his son over in his high chair or hit his wife with a beer bottle."

* TheGamblingAddict: The college students in "Hearts in Atlantis".

* FingerSnappingStreetGang: Referenced. When Bobby runs into the Blue Devils street gang, he briefly fantasizes that they'll help him save Ted from the low men in yellow coats while "snapping their fingers like the Jets in ''{{Film/West Side Story|1961}}''." Reality ensues a moment later when they tell him that there's no way in hell they're tangling with the inhuman low men.
* FirstKiss: Bobby and Carol have a particularly tender one at the top of a Ferris wheel. The narration notes "It was the kiss by which all the others of his life would be judged and found wanting."

* SelfServingMemory: A minor example. In ''Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling'', Bobby recalls once yelling at his mom that Carol wasn't his "little girlfriend," but doubts that he's remember it correctly, since he wouldn't have dared be that rude to her. A reader who flips back to ''Low Men in Yellow Coats'' can find the scene he's thinking about and verify that he's right to doubt - he didn't actually yell or even say it out loud, he just ''really'' wanted to.

** When Bobby goes to the pool hall to collect Ted's payout, he tells Len Files [[Series/StormOfTheCentury "Give me what I want and I'll go away."]]

* IntergenerationalFriendship: Bobby and Ted.

** It's also heavily implied that Carol Gerber got herself involved with Randall Flagg himself.

* BuxomIsBetter: College-age Carol is rather well-endowed, with Pete noting that her sweater "was a wonderfully tight fit."