Not a Happy Family

“Audrey was supposed to be celebrating Easter dinner at her brother Fred’s place with the family, and she had been particularly looking forward to it this year. She would have enjoyed it much more than usual, knowing what she knows.”

The novel relies on secrets that twist expectations and create confusion. This is the first of what will become dozens of secrets the characters are keeping from each other, from the detectives, and from the reader. Audrey at this point does not share her secret—that brother changed his will to leave her half of his fortune. Within 30 pages, she will find out that Fred never followed through, and her world will shatter.

“He’s never resented his father more than he does right now, this very minute—it’s because of his father that he’s in this mess, and he doesn’t deserve it.”

This sentence, a complex and chaotic run-on, suggests Dan’s penchant for explosive emotions, part of his emergence early on as the primary suspect. As the novel unfolds, he reveals a shocking level of discontent, resentment, and rage. This line also introduces Dan’s primary issues: his financial struggles and his desperation for the family wealth to save him.

“Because let me tell you something about expectations. It’s better not to have them. Because you will be disappointed.”

The emotional cruelty of Fred Merton is established in this single scene: the family’s Easter dinner. There, against expectations of a conventional family holiday get-together, Fred mocks each of his children by targeting their deepest vulnerabilities. As the novel proceeds, Fred is called a “psychopath” by multiple characters, and his cruelty is further established—this scene is the foundation for that.

“And they really went to town on him, compared to her. Overkill, I’d say.”

The detectives introduce the conventional response to a break-in at a wealthy mansion. Given the disarray of the furniture and the scattered jewelry, the detectives assume a burglary gone bad. Here, Detective Barr raises the possibility that the violence of the killings suggests something more sinister, something closer to home.

 “‘Fuck […] For real?’ Her heart is suddenly racing.”

At first, this reaction seems like shock on Jenna’s part. Jenna’s guilt is not yet clear, and her reaction is typical of anyone getting the news of their parents’ murders. On a second read, however, with knowledge of Jenna’s guilt, it is clear that her racing heart is not from shock or fear: It is the adrenaline, the thrill of knowing that her crime has been discovered.

“We’re free. All of us. We’re free of him.”

Dan’s reaction is so insensitive that he positions himself as the most likely killer among the siblings. Each of the siblings, however, reveal their love for their father is driven only by mercenary concerns. The inheritance, each of them sees, is ample reward for tolerating a lifetime of abuse from their vicious father. Although the others judge Dan for saying these words aloud, all of them privately feel the same way.

“It’s awful, the way they died. But it’s for the best really. It’s a lot of money, and it’s theirs now. If their parents hadn’t been murdered, they probably would have lived for a long time.”

There is a cool practicality to Jenna’s contemplation on her parents’ killings. Here, she reveals something of her calculating logic: Her parents were little more than problems she needed to deal with in a timely and efficient manner. This represents The Dark Logic of Violence and proves Jenna harbors no regrets.

“But now she thinks about the family taint—the streak of psychopathy that has run through the Merton family. She wonders if it lurks hidden inside one of them.”

Audrey is certain that one of Fred’s children killed him, because she knows his darkest secret: that he long ago murdered their father. Her research into psychopathy becomes her driving conviction. At this point, the detectives are still entertaining the idea of a break-in, but Audrey is certain that her brother’s offspring share his psychopathic tendencies.

“I think he’s losing his grip. He seems convinced they’re going to think it was him. Because of Dad selling the business. And—did you know that he’s got no money?”

As if he is one of her sculptures, Jenna molds her brother into the perfect suspect. Dan collapses emotionally under the strain of the detectives’ burrowing investigation. Jenna, the artist, paints a convincing logical conclusion: Dan, with the least financial resources of any of the siblings, has the best motivation.

“Dan flicks a nervous glance between [the detectives]. ‘Do I need to get a lawyer?’”

In his second interrogation session, knowing how guilty he is starting to look and how flimsy his alibi seems, Dan begins to crumble. He has the only real alibi, the least amount of blame between the siblings, but driving around alone seems flimsy. Invoking his right to an attorney solidifies the perception of him as guilty.

“Catherine was popular by virtue of who she was, and because of her lovely clothes […] Rose was a nobody and had zero fashion sense, which was the kiss of death in high school. […] Catherine knew Rose did not have the advantages she had.”

The depth of Rose’s secret loathing of Catherine is suggested here when Rose recalls their high school days. The irony here reveals the toxicity of wealth: The more Rose remembers how generous Catherine was, the more she remembers how deeply she resented her friend. This reveals Rose is just as covetous as the other Mertons and foreshadows their falling out over the family inheritance.

“She was home with me all night.”

Ted is a curiously conflicted character. He agrees to go along with his wife’s two lies: First that she never left the house Easter night, and second that she borrowed her mother’s earrings. This moment suggests how every good person who gets involved with the Mertons is inevitably involved in duplicity. Everyone they touch, they corrupt. The weight of these lies weighs on Ted over time, proving The Toxic Effects of Secrets and Lies.

“Ellen Cutter draws herself a bath that evening, humming to herself a little, thinking about Audrey’s long visit earlier. Apparently she is not going to inherit a fortune after all. […] They have been friends for a long time, but Ellen is feeling a little bit of schadenfreude.”

“Schadenfreude” means to take delight in the misery of others. Even Ellen, who is generally the novel’s most moral character, falls prey to greed; she is jealous of Audrey’s good fortune, and satisfied when Audrey loses it. Like Rose and Catherine, Ellen and Audrey’s relationship is not the simple, loving friendship it appears to be.

“I know it was one of you. And I know all your little secrets. Maybe it’s time everyone found out what this family is really like.”

Audrey emerges as a twisted moral conscience for the Merton clan. She knows the family secrets—crimes, primarily—and threatens to reveal them. But she is hardly heroic. She is, instead, driven by The Pull of Greed; she wants to expose the Mertons only because she feels cheated out of her promised fortune.

“What kind of child pushes another one off the top of the slide?”

Audrey says this right after a young Jenna tries to kill her older brother. Given the novel’s investigation into the theory of psychopathy, how a lack of empathy may be handed down like other inheritable physical characteristics, this memory creates a genetic profile for Jenna. She, more than her siblings, resembles their cold-blooded, murderous father.

“I was bullied mercilessly—not at school, but by my own father. He was cruel and vindictive. He was especially hard on me, as the only boy, and probably because I disappointed him the most.”

Dan’s unscripted, dramatic mock-eulogy is the first straightforward revelation of the trauma Fred inflicted on his children. However, rather than a liberating confession, this moment shows to others just how “unhinged” Dan has become and solidifies his position as prime suspect. Ironically, his rant evidences what is so lacking in the Merton clan: honesty without egotism. It is at once Dan’s most heroic and most damning moment.

“This may come as a bit of a surprise, but the three of you are not Fred’s only children.”

This is the one twist that the conniving and ever-plotting Merton siblings did not create. In a single announcement, the lawyer upends the siblings’ expectations for their inheritance. This is the only thing that unites them: The threat of a common enemy encroaching on their wealth.

“Summoning happy thoughts, she thinks about the money she will get, and about the baby she’s going to have, and how she will tell Ted.”

This is Catherine at her coldest, her most Merton. Her happy thoughts, as she tries to sleep, settle first on the money—not the family’s money, her money. Even her thoughts of the baby are possessive, and her thoughts of Dan reveal her inherent expectation of being in control.

“He thought he was in love. She didn’t like it. She told him to leave her alone, to stop looking at her like that. […] She left him feeling like he revolted her, that he frightened her.”

Dan’s recollection of this teenage infatuation with a girl at school reveals his unsettling mindset. In the name of love, he pursues this girl, even following her home after she tells him to leave her alone at school. Dan, in this passage, views himself as innocent, awkward, blameless; in the context of a murder mystery, however, this adds suspicion to his character.

“‘[I]t makes me look like I killed Mom and Dad.’ He stood up, in a rage. ‘That fucking bitch—this is all her fault! If she hadn’t pushed that deal on me we wouldn’t be in this mess!’”

Dan spirals into a rage as he realizes the extent of the harm Rose Cutter has caused—not to the family, but to him, specifically. He is furious at being cheated out of his money, and instantly fixates on the fact that Rose’s scheme paints him as suspicious. He wildly assumes the police will close in on him as a suspect, and he blames Rose for it. Lisa, the only person present during this rant, feels her husband is “a fool” who is growing more and more “unhinged.”

“Then it crosses her mind that if one of the other Merton children is convicted of the murders, they will forfeit their share, and there will be more for Rose.”

There is no character entirely free from The Pull of Greed. Here, Ellen works her way to a cold premise: the arrest of any of the Merton siblings means more money for her daughter. Even though she is shocked and ashamed by the reveal of Rose’s scheme, she is convinced that her daughter is innocent of murder. Audrey’s suggestion of genetic psychopathy has burrowed into her mind, and Ellen unconsciously latches onto it, especially when it favors her own family.

“Maybe they’re all in this together.”

Desperate to solve what is rapidly becoming a cold case, Detective Reyes wonders if the Merton murders are, in fact, a massive scheme. This contradicts Irena’s claim that the Merton siblings would never work together: But Irena has already been proven wrong. Though the siblings are, indeed, at odds with each other, all of them mostly want the case to blow over and to get their fortunes in peace. To that end, they will, mostly, set aside their conflicts.

“The rest is a bit of a blur […] Something in her took over.”

When Jenna murders her mother, she “[feels] nothing”; with her father, however, everything is “a blur.” This indicates that Jenna is able to shut down normative emotional reactions, especially as she butchers her own father, repeatedly stabbing him. “Something” is left vague; Shari Lapena leaves the reader to decide whether there is merit to Audrey’s theory of inherited psychopathy, or whether Jenna’s violence is a trait all her own.