All the Dangerous Things

Isabelle is a woman who suffered a traumatizing childhood. As a child, she loses both of her younger sisters (Margaret and Eloise) and is unable to process her grief, as her parents insist on keeping up appearances; Isabelle’s father in particular likely emphasized secrecy to protect his political legacy. In not being able to face her past, Isabelle’s trauma emerges in unexpected ways, growing even more intense after the loss of her son, Mason. These compounding experiences reinforce The Longevity of Trauma.

The novel’s first mention of trauma is Isabelle’s insomnia. She spends a year being unable to sleep following Mason’s disappearance. Sleep has thus stopped being a state of security and rest and instead is a source of anxiety. The idea that terrible things can happen while unconscious leads Isabelle’s mind to cut her sleep. This insomnia permeates her life until she finally finds answers to Mason’s fate. Upon discovering Mason’s fate and those involved in his kidnapping, Isabelle begins to sleep again, as her mind and body recognize that the threat in question was not the unknown, but rather people intimately familiar with her. The same logic applies to Waylon, who spends years trying to find closure for his older sister Allison’s death (through the medium of a podcast). But unlike Isabelle, he immediately links Allison’s fate to a familiar threat—Ben, his former brother-in-law. It is with Isabelle’s help that Waylon is able to rest at long last.

Isabelle’s year-long insomnia juxtaposes her sleepwalking, which stems from childhood trauma. She sleepwalks for months following Eloise’s death and begins sleepwalking again during Mason’s infancy. This return to sleepwalking shows the compounding nature of trauma. Isabelle has not yet processed or even acknowledged Eloise’s death, as Eloise was a sibling lost to miscarriage (making her grief somewhat disconnected, but present nonetheless). However, being around the infant Mason and grappling with postpartum mental health result in her return to old expressions of trauma. The restfulness of sleep is taken from her as both mind and body insist on activity. Isabelle’s trauma spans decades, exacerbated by suppression and only alleviated by an open conversation with her mother—who shares Isabelle’s trauma.

Although Isabelle’s trauma is explored the most due to her status as narrator, her mother’s trauma is just as crucial to the plot. Isabelle’s mother’s ongoing struggle with her mental health stems from the trauma of losing her youngest daughter, Eloise—which resulted in her killing Margaret (which she saw as protecting her while suffering from postpartum psychosis) due to her trauma going unaddressed. The circumstances surrounding Margaret’s death cause a rift between Isabelle and her mother and force Isabelle’s mother to distance herself from her grandson, Mason, out of fear. This fear also prevents the two women from having open conversations about maternity and mental health, exacerbating Isabelle’s maternity-related difficulties through isolation. The women’s shared trauma showcases not only the longevity of such pain but also the ways that pain can become generational in the absence of intervention.

Overall, the novel explores different forms of trauma to showcase the way that suffering alters people’s thoughts and actions. This underscores the difficulties of healing and the necessity of compassion to heal. Isabelle and her mother continue to carry the burden of trauma as the novel ends, but the progress they make through dialogue and compassion ensures that their story ends on a hopeful note.