77 pages • 2 hours read
Sarah Pekkanen, Greer HendricksA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Prologue-Chapter 3
Part 1, Chapters 4-6
Part 1, Chapters 7-9
Part 1, Chapters 10-12
Part 1, Chapters 13-15
Part 1, Chapters 16-18
Part 2, Chapters 19-21
Part 2, Chapters 22-24
Part 2, Chapters 25-27
Part 2, Chapters 28-30
Part 3, Chapters 31-33
Part 3, Chapters 34-36
Part 3, Chapters 37-39
Part 3, Chapter 40-Epilogue
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
Hendricks and Pekkanen elucidate the many subtle and startling ways control turns abusive. Richard’s obsessive need for control reveals itself gradually in the text, just as Vanessa only comes to realize it over time. The battle for control—Richard’s control of Vanessa and of their story, and Vanessa’s desperation to reclaim it—infuses the narrative with heightened tension and acts as the novel’s overarching conflict. By highlighting the ways in which abuse manifests early in a relationship, the novel comments on the nuanced methods abusers undertake.
Richard’s control first begins with nicknaming Vanessa “nervous Nellie” (160). This seemingly endearing act commandeers her identity, belittling her to a single trait. Richard works to maintain his power through psychological and emotional abuse: He buys her a phone to keep tabs on her, pushes her to quit her job, pressures her to quit drinking, and calls her anonymously and hangs up. When this fails to control Vanessa, he escalates his tactics to more overtly recognizable forms of abuse: gaslighting, undermining her public image, and physical assault. Richard’s intention is to mold Vanessa into his ideal wife—one who acts just as he wants her to.
One of Richard’s most effective ways of controlling Vanessa is by telling her she’s “acting crazy” when she confronts him. Richard turns to this specific vehicle for controlling Vanessa because of her mother’s mental illness. Even when Vanessa has freed herself from him, he still manages to control her in small ways: Vanessa’s public image has been ruined, and she, too, believes she is crazy at times.
The novel presents Richard’s need for control as a contrast to his protectiveness, which Vanessa loves so much early in their relationship. This disparity is presented through an echoing of the same lines in very different contexts: When Vanessa feels unsafe while walking home alone, Richard tells her, “Even when I’m not there, I’m always with you” (100). Later, after Richard’s first physical attack, when he catches her lying about going into the city, he says, “You need to remember that even when I’m not there, I’m always with you” (298). Though the words are virtually the same, former is meant to comfort, while the latter is threatening.
Richard’s “need to control everything in his environment as precisely as he organized his socks and T-shirts” is implied to have derived from his unhappy childhood (305). However, the novel doesn’t allow this trauma to neatly explain away his abuse. Rather, in the peace Vanessa achieves by not succumbing to hate or anger, it returns the control back to Vanessa, who now has the autonomy and power to live her own life.
Fear is a pervasive tone within all psychological thrillers, but it is especially significant in a text that explores humankind’s biological and psychological responses to the emotion. Though certainly present tonally, fear is most successful as a theme because of Vanessa’s relationship to it. She spends most of her life succumbing to anxiety and making fear-based decisions, but as her character develops, the novel forces her to confront the root of fear and then empowers her to reconsider her relationship to it.
The authors spend a great deal of time focusing on the physical manifestations of fear: When Richard comes to speak with Vanessa after she confronts Emma, he touches her cheek and “sets off an explosion of sensation,” as her “body clenches” in response (197). Through a podcast, the novel considers how the body responds in the same way to fear as to arousal: “the pounding in the chest, the dilating of the pupils, the increase in blood pressure” (201). By stressing the ways in which the human body responds to fear, the novel demonstrates the ways the body senses danger when the mind cannot. Doing so elucidates the idea that the early unnamable feelings Vanessa had in her relationship were from her body sensing danger. This “reptilian inheritance in each of our brains that alerts us to danger” centers the narrative within a predator/prey storyline; in focusing on the biological defense against danger, the novel explores the nature of fear in humans—how it works, how it is exploited, and how it can be overcome (217).
The exploitation of fear is examined through Richard’s torture of Vanessa but also in considering the ways Richard’s life is influenced by fear: He was most dangerous “when he felt [Vanessa’s] love was slipping away” (307). Richard’s greatest fears—of being unloved, being left, or losing control—drive him to commit evil acts. The novel distinguishes a moral contrast between Richard and Vanessa: While his fear causes him to harm others, Vanessa’s pushes her to survive, and then, to protect others.
One of Vanessa’s greatest liberations is her ability to renegotiate her relationship to fear: She recognizes it but doesn’t allow it to paralyze her any longer.
The authors craft truth to be murky because it contributes to the novel’s mysterious undertones, but also because the reality of truth is that it is often obscure and even subjective at times. Truth, then, is pitted against perception because an individual’s ability to discern without bias is almost always compromised. Moreover, perceptions play a crucial role in the narrative, particularly in Richard’s desire to influence public perceptions in his favor.
The truth of Vanessa’s marriage is often difficult for her to decipher; the misgivings she was conditioned to ignore are as obscure as the pleasant memories hindsight has made her doubt: “I was happy, I think, but I wonder now if my memory is playing tricks on me. If it is giving me the gift of an illusion. We all layer them over our remembrances; the filters through which we want to see our lives” (109). This contrast calls into question an individual’s ability to recall an event impartially. The novel continues to explores the falsity of perceptions through the superficial beauty of Vanessa’s life with Richard: From the extravagant house to a country club membership to fine clothes and jewelry, Vanessa was surrounded by splendor, but her life still felt empty. Upon reflection, as Vanessa begins to recognize the early issues in her marriage, she recognizes how much it held the veneer of happiness but lacked substantial warmth; their “marriage only looked good on the surface” (336).
Richard covered his wife’s bruises with diamonds and manipulated reality because he “wanted his life to look a certain way” (375). Perceptions mattered more to Richard than anything else; he wanted what seemed like the idyllic marriage and terrorized his wife to attain it. Richard denies and manipulates truth to maintain power. Vanessa can only recognize this once she is out from under his thumb, realizing that Richard “confuses things so [they] can’t see the truth” (283). By doing so, he “always controls the perception of [their] narrative” (332).
Truth and perception push and pull against one another during the novel, never quite achieving an equilibrium. Vanessa’s marriage leaves her mind twisted around a series of truths, lies, and half-truths; she remembers their relationship as “far too tangled and complex to unravel” (194). Though she desperately tried to “capture the truth,” she surrounded herself “with lies”—these lies, though, were imperative for her survival (204). Emma’s decision to tell the truth about her identity and intentions complicates Vanessa’s perception of their narrative, giving the novel multiple realities: Vanessa’s, Richard’s, Emma’s, and “the actual truth, which is always the most elusive to recognize” (281). Therefore, the novel posits truth and falsity not as two extreme poles, but as murky concepts. The novel advocates for the importance of sorting through perceptions to find the truth; it places the utmost authority in the truth, presenting it as the only method for progress.
Hendricks and Pekkanen subvert expectations by using the trope of the jealous ex-wife to explore the significance of female relationships. Rather than positioning Vanessa, the ex-wife, and Emma, her younger replacement, as antagonist and protagonist, the novel presents the women as counterparts and even co-conspirators. Though Vanessa is rightfully presented as the obsessive ex trying to prevent her ex-husband’s second marriage, her motivations to protect rather than harm Emma undermine the convention of pitting women against each other, especially in romantic narratives.
The novel includes subtle moments of female comradery, such as Vanessa’s appointment at the fertility clinic, to demonstrate the impact of seemingly small acts of empathy between women. When Vanessa unwillingly reveals in front of Richard that she has been pregnant before, the doctor senses her agitation: “Dr. Hoffman put a hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. It felt like a motherly gesture” (83). Similarly, Kate offers silent support to Vanessa despite the danger she puts herself in from Richard. Though Kate does not directly interfere, her presence is the best encouragement she is capable of offering; she insinuates reasons for Richard’s abuse, makes a show of her jewelry and limp, and hovers near Vanessa to look after her in small ways.
Vanessa’s relationship to Charlotte is the most significant bond she has after the death of her mother. Charlotte’s unconditional love and unyielding strength keep Vanessa alive and inspire her to do good in her life. Vanessa tells Charlotte, “You were my sunlight. You taught me how to find rainbows” (364). After her traumatic relationship with Richard, Vanessa’s life is shrouded in darkness; Charlotte pulls her back into the light.
Women rescue each other in this novel, and these women also rescue themselves. Through Vanessa’s various links to women throughout her life, the novel creates a positive and powerful portrait of the impact women have on the lives of other women, thus reclaiming a male-centric narrative for female empowerment.
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