Behind Her Eyes

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-18

Part 2, Chapters 19-36

Part 3, Chapters 37-58

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Themes

Appearance and Identity

As the title of the book implies, appearance—what the beholder perceives—and identity—the real person behind one’s eyes—are central themes in the book. The mystery of the story lies in the authenticity of identity—both physical and psychological. The power of appearance, the ability to change it, and shifting identities are vital to the story. The text is peppered with references to false identity such as “practice wife” (51) and “faux middle-class exterior” (65).

David’s handsomeness is of great importance to all those who love him, and this love is the binding force throughout the story. Louise, Adele, and Rob are all attracted to David because of his physical features. Louise mentions his warm blue eyes. Adele appreciates his masculinity, particularly his broad shoulders, and at the end Rob talks about how he desired David’s “strong back […] That body pounding its lust into mine” (370).

Adele is known for her beauty, which is part of her charm and power over people: “It’s nice to get dressed up and to be beautiful […] It’s a reminder that I’m in control (261). She also places great emphasis on other people’s appearance. Louise’s is of particular importance to her, and she works on helping Louise to become slimmer and more toned while manipulating Louise’s thoughts and actions. This concern for Louise’s appearance turns out to be part of her objective of getting David to fall in love with her, as he has now rejected Adele. Her mental instability and hypocrisy, however, cause her to say about Louise, “She’s prettier than she thinks […] curvy and feminine” (59), but in moments of rage at David’s affair with her, Adele calls Louise a “fucking fat receptionist” (147).

Louise is initially impressed by both Adele and David for their outward appearance: “I remember how good they looked together in that brief, awful moment of realization. A beautiful couple” (13). As Louise’s relationship with Adele progresses, her impression of her varies as her emotions swing between love and pity and hate for her: “I thought she was so elegant and in control, so far from this nervous, self-deprecating woman. It’s strange how different we all appear to who we really are” (168). Louise’s confidence grows as she loses weight under Adele’s guidance—her own appearance also important to her quality of life: “I’m definitely getting slimmer […] Perhaps the two of them, David and Adele, they’re bringing me back to life” (125). Louise’s trust of David also constantly metamorphoses as she sees him in different roles or identities: “The man-from-the-bar is fading in my head and being replaced with my boss” (26).

There are also clues in people’s appearance belying their past. Louise notices the scars on David’s arms from the burns he suffered in the fire, and Adele notices the tracks on Rob’s arms—a sign of a heroin user. Louise immediately identifies Anthony Hawkins as a heroin user from the same marks.

Physical locations play an important role in the practice of lucid dreaming and astral projection. Adele is able to mentally travel to locations she has visited while awake, such as Louise’s flat: “I’ve learned to be good at taking in the details” (79). Taking note of the position of furniture and other details allows one to revisit that place through visualization. Louise learns this technique and is able to enter David and Adele’s house and find Adele dying, as planned. The key to knowing whether a person is dreaming or not is in the appearance of their hands, which look different depending on whether or not they are awake. “Count [your] fingers” (75) is one of the vital instructions for managing a lucid dreaming state.

The power of appearance to make a good impression and to aid in lying and deception is introduced early in the book. Adele states: “People respond to beauty […] David once told me that jurors were far more likely to believe good-looking people in the dock than average or ugly ones. It’s only the luck of skin and bones, but it does have a magic” (20). It is this magic that Adele uses to charm, deceive, and manipulate those around her. Her real identity, that of Rob, is hidden within her beautiful outward appearance. When David turns away from her due to her unstable and obsessive behavior, she seeks an attractive replacement for herself to win back his love. The final revelation in the book, that Rob inhabited both Adele and Louise, is utterly unpredictable. David and the readers have been deceived by outward appearance throughout the story. Even as they drive away on their honeymoon, Rob continues to deceive David: “My teeth are gritted behind my smile” (373).

Secrets and Lies

A secret from the past lies at the heart of the story and is noted from the beginning in the epigraph from Benjamin Franklin: “Three can keep a secret if two are dead.” The unearthing of the secret keeping David close to Adele and to which Adele often refers, is the backbone of the plot. It is not the only secret, however. Louise’s worldly friend Sophie tells her: “Everyone has secrets, Lou […] Everyone should be allowed their secrets. You can never know everything about a person. You’d go mad trying to” (16). This is an example of foreshadowing, with its reference to everybody’s secrets, and the idea of hidden identities.

Adele is the keeper of the biggest secret: her true identity. She also holds all kinds of secrets from everyone with whom she interacts—from her husband about her relationship with Louise, to the drug addict Anthony Watkins, who she successfully convinces that David is abusing her.

The idea that everyone has secrets is true to almost every character in the book. David has his knowledge of Rob’s demise and his betrayal of Adele with Louise. Rob deceives the therapists at Westland and also later steals his sister’s benefit money. Anthony Watkins keeps secrets from his parents. Sophie has constant affairs behind her husband’s back.

Louise is the one character who seems from the beginning to be honest and innocent. She feels guilty about her affair with David and is driven to confess and unburden herself. However, even she starts to hold the secret and justifies herself: “[E]veryone’s life is probably a mess of secrets and lies when you boil them right down. We can never see who someone really is underneath the skin. In some kind of solidarity with Adele I pinch myself” (103). She continues to feel conflicted throughout the relationship and cannot ever fully feel at ease with herself: “I may be a bitch and duplicitous, but enough is enough. I want him, but not like this. I can’t do this anymore” (180). She suffers because of the secrets she thinks Adele is hiding about David hitting her: “All her fear and secrecy on display in those sickly greens and muted blues” (181). Adele knows Louise is starting to hold secrets: “Secrets, secrets, secrets. People are filled to the brim with them if you look closely. Louise is collecting several of her own” (295).

Shared secrets, individual secrets, and the power of secrets to bind are vital elements of the story. The secret ability to control dreams and travel to other places while asleep is the one that Rob, Adele, and Louise share and the one that allows Rob to carry out his final, shocking move.

Addiction and Escape

The blurred lines between reality and altered states alongside the notions of truth and real identity intertwine throughout the book and underline the theme of deception. Drugs and other types of addiction are constant in the story.

Every one of the main characters in the book is addicted to some substance or behavior and uses it to escape from reality. David and Louise regularly drink alcohol; a bar is the setting for their first meeting and booze accompanies them throughout their affair. Louise’s drinking habit is fairly innocuous, but she almost constantly drinks to escape the boredom and routine of her daily life as a single mother. Her behavior is influenced by her drunken state and her resolve to keep away from David weakens when she has been drinking. Louise’s friend Sophie has constant marital affairs; it seems to add some excitement to her life as a married woman.

David’s father was an alcoholic, who “pissed everything away drinking” (330) and David now keeps a hidden stash of whiskey in his office drawer to allow himself a break from the pressures of living with Adele and their shared secret. David’s psychiatric specialism is addiction, and he wants to do outreach work to help addicts. However, his help of one addict, Anthony Watkins, unintentionally forges a bond between Adele and the Anthony, allowing her to obtain the drug and to call David’s character into question.

Like Anthony, Rob is a heroin user. Rob’s addiction is his way of escaping his background: “the marks and the biting and the sucking my blood are about them sending me to rehab and making me give up the one thing I enjoy in this dreary life” (141).

Adele’s psychotic episodes and mental instability are supposed to be managed by prescription medication, although her use of the pills David prescribes is erratic at best, according to what she tells herself and Louise. She uses the idea that David is controlling her with pills to elicit pity in Louise: “I’m trying to be normal. Emptied out capsule pills so just taking empty cases when he’s here” (235). Adele, in the present, is addicted to exercise: “I get some of the workout I’ve missed. I need the rush that comes with it. I love the rush” (81). She is also a heroin user in the present and this is her drug of choice when she wants to astral project. In Fairdale, Adele made a pact with Rob to try heroin and teach him astral projection; ultimately, this allowed Rob to take over her body. In this way, Rob escaped from the reality of his sordid life and entered Adele’s privileged existence. Rob is also addicted to David—an obsession he identifies as love, but which leads to behavior as extreme as that unleashed by any illicit substance.