The New Couple in 5B

“All the windows are dark except one. The yoga mom is standing there watching us. She must have seen the whole thing.”

The ubiquity of surveillance in New York City is an important motif in the novel. Even before Rosie and Chad move into the Windermere, they have a direct view into their neighbors’ lives, and vice versa. In this passage, Rosie realizes that an anonymous neighbor has been watching her have sex with Chad.

“Okay, that’s weird, right? […] does that mean he knew we were getting the apartment? Would he not have told me? That he was sure enough we were moving to request our security deposit back?”

This passage is indicative of Rosie’s casual, familiar narrative tone. The chapters featuring Rosie as a narrator often use direct address, as if Rosie is speaking directly to the reader. This passage is also one of many clues provided early in the novel that Chad is not a trustworthy figure.

“But this city—with its nightclubs and bars, its stages and bright lights, fancy restaurants and glittering people—it calls to me, especially when the sun goes down. I want to devour this place, this life. And he wants to watch it from the windows of our safe and lovely home.”

This passage comes from a 1963 chapter narrated by Willa Winter, a previous resident of 5B who acts as a foil to protagonist Rosie. Unlike Rosie, who prefers to stay up late into the night writing on her own, Willa enjoys taking advantage of New York’s nightlife. Throughout the novel, these glimpses into Willa’s life act as an inverse of Rosie’s own experience.

“In the town where I grew up, my father was known as Preacher. He delivered his fiery sermons in the barn behind our house—his own brand of religion, cherry-picking from all the grand traditions.”

Rosie’s traumatic past with her intensely religious father is an important part of her character. The novel suggests that he used his belief in the supernatural to justify his abusive behavior, and that Rosie still struggles with the effects of this abuse. Her Belief in Magic and the Supernatural is complicated by her past.

“They were tricksters, frauds, con artists, preying on the most vulnerable. My grandmother was not like them. She truly believed in her charms and herbal remedies; her dreams were vivid and eerily prescient. If there is a magical layer to this life, maybe she was tapped into it. But not my parents.”

Like her grandmother, Rosie often has visions that come true. Because of her complicated relationship with her father’s religious frauds, Rosie tries not to believe that she has powers of premonition. However, she does believe that her grandmother had those powers. This cognitive dissonance causes tension for Rosie.

“There will be some reason, some explanation, or possible explanations for why so many people have died there. I don’t know what the ultimate ending will be—only that it’s through the lives and deaths of the residents that I’ll find a new way to understand the history of our new home and say something larger about life and death itself.”

As a writer, Rosie relies on narratives to make sense of her life. This passage suggests that she has determined the end of her book on the Windermere before she has completed the research process. Having rejected the idea that the building is haunted, Rosie is searching for an alternate explanation.

“I am a true-crime writer so I know a thing or two about procedure, and the police will treat this place as a crime scene; the death will be investigated. There will be questions, at least some looking around for motive and opportunity for something other than suicide.”

Rosie’s career as a true-crime writer makes her confident that she can handle the investigation surrounding Dana’s death. The fact that she steals evidence from the crime scene later in this chapter suggests that her experience has not translated to wisdom. In reality, Rosie’s familiarity with true crime makes her overly confident in her instincts.

“His performance is pitch-perfect—earnest, searching, distraught. I feel like I could be watching him on stage.”

Chad’s role as an actor is an important part of his characterization: As a result of his career, Chad is outgoing and charismatic. Rosie’s use of the term “performance” in this passage points to his role as an actor but also suggests that Rosie does not fully trust what he’s saying to the detective.

“It’s not true. I know it isn’t. But then when I look at the screen on my phone, there’s a red number six on my phone icon. A slew of missed calls from Chad, at least three voice messages.”

As Rosie gets drawn deeper into the mysteries of the Windermere and her husband’s family, she grows increasingly unsure about what is real and what is fake. The novel offers no explanation for the discrepancies between her experiences and reality, causing the reader to feel the same uncertainty as Rosie.

“Visual hallucinations—I kept seeing Mara Granta being strangled in front of her children. I heard Julia Dole, the recording artist, singing the song that would release and become a hit only after she was raped and stabbed fifty times by her killer.”

This passage demonstrates the extent to which Rosie’s work has infiltrated her mental health. Although Rosie was taught that her visions predict the future, this passage shows that she also has hallucinations about the past events on which her research centers. The deaths described in this passage highlight the novel’s thematic interest in motherhood and fame.

“She and her husband, Charles, are world travelers, often gone for months, leaving the children with a nanny. Maybe that’s why her child is such a little monster.”

In “Act 2”, it is revealed that the little boy Rosie saw in the basement of the Windermere is the ghost of Miles, Charles, and Ella’s young son who died after falling down an elevator shaft. This passage, from a 1963 Willa chapter, suggests that Charles and Ella were inattentive parents. The 1963 chapters add depth to the characterization of Charles and Ella.

“Energies linger, they echo. The past, the future, all dwell side by side. It’s like a double exposure. You see what was there, what might come, overlaying the present.”

This passage comes from Rosie’s father, whom Rosie sees as a fraudulent preacher and showman who gaslit her into believing that she had visions of the future. Rosie largely rejects her belief that places and people can be haunted. However, this passage also recalls the structure of the book—which interweaves narratives from Rosie’s present and the Windermere’s past side by side.

“Olivia is creating a narrative, weaving an explanation for all those calls. That’s what she does, create a story about why her clients are not guilty. She’s good at it.”

The use and misuse of narratives is an important theme throughout the novel, as Rosie uses storytelling to make sense of the mystery surrounding the Windermere. In this passage, she recontextualizes her lawyer Olivia’s misleading statements as a type of narrative designed to prove Rosie and Chad had no part in Dana’s death.

“Most men, yeah, okay. But Max is a gentleman, kind, chivalrous—a door opener, a coat holder. No. He’s not one of those handsy, oblivious men who thinks his needs and desires are the only thing to consider in a sexual encounter.”

When Rosie’s best friend and former editor Max loses his job, he attributes it to the fact that an assistant at his company accused him of making unwanted advances to her at a party. Although Rosie rushes to defend him, Max admits that he was drunk that night and may have acted inappropriately. Rosie’s willingness to defend her guilty friend demonstrates the ubiquity of sexual harassment in the United States, and the complicity of women defending the men in their lives.

“Maybe someone else would have needed more to convince them. But I didn’t. I could feel his innocence, his goodness, with every cell in my body. We stood like that awhile.”

Lisa Unger uses Dana’s steadfast belief in Chad—despite mounting evidence about his unreliability—as a means of building suspense. Although the reader is aware of Chad’s lies, Dana continues to trust him, heightening the reader’s sense of her danger. This passage indicates that Dana has believed in Chad’s goodness from the beginning of their relationship.

“Detective Crowe must be doing the same thing, sifting through this record all of us keep of our lives, this curated and filtered diary that we post for everyone we know.”

After Xavier’s death, Rosie browses his social media to learn more about him. In this passage, she imagines Detective Crowe doing the same and wonders what story her social media tells. As a writer, Rosie consistently thinks in terms of narrative.

“My late wife and I lived our life here, raised our son. She lives on in every nook and cranny. All our memories dwell here like ghosts. To leave here would be to leave her behind.”

In this passage, New York historian Arthur Alpern explains why he has lived in the same small apartment for nearly 60 years. For Alpern, the idea of his wife’s spirit remaining in the apartment is comforting, reinforcing her presence in his life. For Rosie, on the other hand, these spirits constitute a haunting.

“I hear my father’s voice. They’re just pictures. They have a story they want to tell you. You’re one of the few who can hear what they have to say.”

Throughout the book, Rosie struggles to shake off the homegrown superstitions and religious beliefs that her parents ingrained in her as a child. In this passage, however, her acceptance of her father’s belief in communication with spirits leads her to receive a message from the ghost of Willa Winter, who warns that she is in danger. Ultimately, Rosie’s willingness to listen to spirits, rather than reject them, saves her life.

“Every day I pretend not to know him. His uniform a barrier; as if he’s only mine when he’s dressed for a night out, a different person altogether during our shared days.”

The identity of Willa’s lover is not provided until her final chapter, when he is revealed to be the Windermere’s doorman, Abi. Abi’s uniform is a visual reminder of the distance between their lives: He is a working-class immigrant, while she is the wife of a successful writer. While the uniform highlights their differences, the city allows them to connect on a personal level outside of his work.

“In reverse, it could mean that you are out of sync with yourself, the people in your life. It might mean that you are at war with yourself, that you might be punishing yourself. The Lovers in reverse suggests that you seek spiritual counsel.”

Rosie is initially suspicious of her sister’s request to pull her tarot cards but ultimately gives in. Although Rosie interprets this card as evidence that she is disconnected from Chad, the novel also suggests that Rosie is in denial about her husband’s involvement in the murder of Betty Cartwright, and the card reflects this interior struggle.

“And Miles would always have a home here. There would always be family for him. He wouldn’t be alone after we were gone.”

Ella confesses to Rosie that she and Charles conspired to get them out of apartment 5B because they wanted to reunite the fifth-floor apartments as a resting place for their son Miles. This passage indicates that Ella believes Miles’s spirit is tied to the apartment, and not to her or Charles.

“But it was more than that, wasn’t it? There was something that kept them tied together. He wore the necklace, too.”

As the passage indicates, the Hamsa hand is worn as a necklace by a number of main characters, including Chad, the Aldridges, and Abi. It is also found on the dead bodies of Dana and Xavier. The novel does not offer an explanation for these necklaces or explain why both Chad and the Abi—who were working independently of each other—both chose to put the necklaces on their victims.

“My husband, the monster, exits the roof door. With brute strength, he breaks the handle off and lets the door close behind him. We’re trapped up here now, together.”

At the beginning of the novel, Chad is described as charismatic and loving, with movie-star good looks. Sarah dreams that Chad is a monster feeding on Rosie, and after Rosie realizes that Chad is guilty of multiple murders, his descriptions turn monstrous, reflecting her shifting views of her husband.