His & Hers

“There are at least two sides to every story: Yours and mine. Ours and theirs. His and hers. Which means someone is always lying. Lies told often enough can start to sound true, and we all sometimes hear a voice inside our heads, saying something so shocking, we pretend it is not our own.”

This passage delves into the subjective nature of truth and the pivotal role of perception. Truth is fluid and based on individual viewpoints. The passage further underscores people’s susceptibility to repetition. The constant reiteration of lies can, over time, become so ingrained that they are accepted as the truth.

“Sometimes I think I am the unreliable narrator of my own life. Sometimes I think we all are.”

Anna’s observation demonstrates her awareness that she filters her experiences through her trauma, pain, and self-concept and that the resulting perception of her reality may not be accurate. By acknowledging the potential fallibility of narratives, the passage encourages contemplation of the complex nature of human perception and the multifaceted reality of truth.

“Clothes don’t make the woman, but they can help disguise the cloth we are cut from […] Now is a perfect time to wear something new and pretty to hide inside. When I’m satisfied with who I look like, I wrap her up in my favorite red coat.”

This passage explores the transformative power of clothing and its role in shaping one’s identity. Anna uses clothing as a tool to control how others perceive her and to improve how she feels about herself. She dissociates from the final product, hiding inside it and wrapping the third-person “her” inside a coat.

“Something changed when my husband and I lost our daughter. We both died a little bit when she did. But like ghosts who don’t know they are dead, we carried on haunting ourselves and each other for a long time afterward.”

The passage from Anna highlights the profound impact of losing a child. Through the powerful analogy of being like ghosts unaware of their demise, the author conveys the lingering emotional burden that they both carry. The imagery of becoming like ghosts symbolizes the lasting grief and the struggle to move forward after such a tragic loss. Their grief and pain have altered their understanding of themselves.

“Truth in my work is everything, but truth in my personal life can feel like a bright light I need to turn away from.”

The passage highlights the complex and often conflicting relationship between personal truth and professional truth seeking. It contrasts different types of narrative: the truth in objective facts and police reports versus the subjective truth of personal experiences and speeches. Truth in her personal life is like a light because it illuminates terrible memories in such a way that she cannot avoid seeing (and therefore dealing with) them.

“Sometimes it feels as though I live just below the surface, and everyone else lives above. When I try to be, and sound, and act like they do for too long, it feels like I can’t breathe. As though even my lungs were made differently, and I’m not able, or good enough to inhale the same air as the people I meet.”

In the passage, Mrs. Andrews reflects on her sense of otherness, which isolates her from others. She feels materially different and born for a different environment; it’s as if she cannot force her body to do what others do automatically. She doesn’t simply feel different; she feels less than.

“My mother was always fond of boxes, but not all of them were real. When I was a little girl, she taught me how to build them in my head, and hide my worst memories inside. I learned to fill them with the things I most wanted to forget, so that they were locked away and hidden in the darkest corners of my mind, where nobody, including me, would ever look.”

Anna expresses her tendency toward psychological self-preservation. The metaphor of constructing mental boxes is a coping mechanism employed by both mother and daughter to protect themselves from painful memories. By hiding these memories so effectively, Anna indicates that their concealment is necessary to her emotional survival.

“In my experience, there are two kinds of women: those who spend a lifetime trying not to turn into their mothers, and those who literally seem to want nothing more. I often find both varieties get the complete opposite of what they hoped for—one set become carbon copies of the women they didn’t want to be, while the others never live up to their own expectations of who they think they should have become.”

Jack’s comment reflects his experiences with women and his beliefs about the intricate interplay between individual desires, societal expectations, and the influence of maternal figures in the formation of a woman’s sense of self. His insight must be interpreted through his own experiences: Jack has no experience of being a daughter but lots of experience of being around toxic or damaged women.

“Everyone stared at me again when I got back to class, and I felt like they all knew things about me that they couldn’t, didn’t, and mustn’t ever know. I’ve hated people staring at me ever since. It might make my choice of career—presenting the news every day to millions of people—seem a little odd. But it’s just me and a robotic camera in the studio. If I can’t see them looking at me, it’s okay. Like a child who thinks nobody can see them if they cover their own eyes with their hands.”

Anna remembers her classmates’ scrutiny when she was vulnerable. As a news presenter, she now can interact with millions of people without seeing them. The use of a robotic camera in the studio allows her to maintain control over her visibility, creating a barrier between herself and the outside world. This passage also touches on the theme of trauma because Anna’s aversion to being stared at stems from an experience that has left a lasting impact on her.

“I had an imaginary friend when I was a child, just like a lot of lonely children. He was called Harry and I would pretend to have conversations with him. I even did a funny voice for his replies. My family thought it was hilarious, but in my mind, Harry was real. It was as though I was him and he was me. Whenever I did something wrong, I blamed Harry instead. Sometimes I insisted that he was guilty for so long, even I believed it.”

The passage explores the theme of imagination as a coping mechanism for loneliness and the blurred lines between reality and fiction. Mrs. Andrews’s creation of an imaginary friend, Harry, is a common experience of lonely children seeking companionship (as Jack did when he was a child). In blaming Harry, she avoids taking responsibility for her actions and becomes an expert in shifting blame.

“Time became a bit nonlinear inside my head after they [Jack’s parents] died. Bad things just kept on happening. Not just the death of my daughter and the divorce; it was as though any future I had once imagined for myself had decided to unravel. Now it’s happening again.”

Jack reveals the impact of trauma on his experience of time and himself as an integrated individual. Tragedy causes time to lose its linear nature within his mind. The occurrence of unfortunate events seems to perpetuate, further unraveling any envisioned future he once had. Jack’s statement indicates the reoccurrence of this phenomenon, suggesting that trauma disrupts not only one’s perception of time but also the sense of personal coherence and progression.

“Some people use a filter on life as well as photos, which allows them to only see what they want to.”

This quotation refers to the concept of selective perception and representation. People consciously or unconsciously filter their experiences and appearances, crafting their reality like a well-curated social media feed. The filtered life, like the filtered photos, offers a sense of control that is missing otherwise.

“Watching things unfold and people unravel afterward was delicious. Better than anything I’ve read or seen on TV, because it was real. And I was the author of it all.”

This passage demonstrates the perverse pleasure Mrs. Andrews finds in control and manipulation over others and the thrill of scripting reality. As she watches the news coverage of the murdered women, she finds satisfaction and a sense of superiority in being the mastermind behind it all.

“Since she died, time stretches and contracts in ways I can’t fathom. It feels like I have less of it somehow, as though the world is spinning too fast, the days falling into one another in an exhausting blur. I was not a natural mother, but I tried to be the best I could. Really tried. My own mum said that the first few months were always the hardest with a baby, but those were all I had.”

In the passage, Anna’s reflection on the death of her daughter reveals the profound impact of trauma on her perception of time and her sense of self. The central theme that emerges is the haunting experience of loss and the enduring effects it has on a person’s life. It also echoes Jack’s portrayal of time as non-linear after the death, creating a common thread of experience.

“Her face expresses a judgment I cannot afford. People get preoccupied with the fiction of truth. The lives we lead need to be gold-plated nowadays, a series of varnished truths for the sake of how we appear on the outside. Strangers who view us through a screen—whether on TV or social media—think they know who we are. Nobody is interested in reality anymore; that’s something they don’t want to ‘like’ or ‘share’ or ‘follow.’”

Social media has created a world in which Anna feels like she is onscreen constantly rather than only when in the studio. She feels pressure to present an idealized version of herself, and she sacrifices authenticity for the sake of external perception. People are more interested in the polished façade Anna projects than the messy reality of who she is. While she crafts her public persona with care, the passage suggests her audience is instrumental in shaping the way she lives her life.

“Youth fools us into thinking there are infinite paths to choose from in life; maturity tricks us into thinking there is only one.”

The quotation underscores the theme of subjective truth. Neither of the contrasting perspectives of youth and maturity is endorsed as correct. One’s ideas shift but don’t necessarily improve.

“Police and journalists get exposed to inhumanity every day, but those horrors aren’t a secret. They get reported so that the whole world knows the truth and justice can be served. The whole world doesn’t need to know about what happened in Blackdown all those years ago. But the people responsible must be punished.”

The passage explores the frequently public nature of crime and justice. When crimes are secret, the concepts of truth and justice become more elusive and more complicated. Sexual crimes, such as the gang assaults that took place on Anna’s 16th birthday, often happen in the shadows, so there is no official justice. Mrs. Andrews, because she found out about the abuse and the assaults, now feels responsible for providing Anna with some type of justice.

“We tend to categorize people the way we categorize books: if they don’t fit neatly into a genre, we’re not sure what to make of them.”

Mrs. Andrews points to people’s tendency to label and classify individuals based on predefined categories, much like books are assigned genres. This categorization, or lack thereof, becomes a source of uncertainty and confusion when encountering individuals who defy easy classification. It suggests that understanding is often limited by one’s reliance on rigid categories.

“Finding people is surprisingly simple once you know how, even those who do not wish to be found. Police and journalists use a lot of the same tools to trace people. You’d be amazed how easy it is, not just to find someone, but to find out everything about them. All the things they would rather nobody knew.”

The passage underscores the notion that in today’s technologically advanced world, maintaining privacy and keeping secrets have become increasingly challenging. The novel continually moves between our inability to ever know people completely and the intrusive access some people acquire.

“The lies we tell ourselves are always the most dangerous. I think it’s instinct; self-preservation is a fundamental part of our DNA. We are a species of liars, and sometimes we deliberately connect the dots in the wrong order, and pretend to make sense of what we see. We stretch the stories of our lives to fit our own desired narratives, presenting a prettier picture for those around us. Honesty loses every time to a lie less ordinary, and the truth is overrated. Far better to make it up than to make do. The world of make-believe isn’t just for children. Like shoes, the stories we tell about ourselves get bigger with age. When we grow out of one, we make up another. I did what I had to do.”

In this passage, Mrs. Andrews reflects on the power and danger of self-deception, highlighting the innate human instinct for self-preservation. The author explores how individuals construct narratives about their lives and often distort reality to fit their desired version of the truth. Mrs. Andrews suggests that lies are pervasive because honesty is less interesting. Through the metaphor of shoes and the analogy to children’s make-believe, the passage suggests that as we mature, we continue to create and evolve our stories to navigate the complexities of life. Ultimately, her admission that she did what she had to do underscores the notion that sometimes, in the pursuit of self-preservation, individuals are willing to sacrifice truth for personal gain.

“There are pictures of me when I was fifteen for starters, but also a more recent framed photo of me, Jack, and Olivia, which makes me happy. She isn’t holding on to that teenage version of me anymore; she sees me as I am today and seems to love me anyway. Parents spend their youth trying to understand their children; children spend their adulthood trying to understand their parents.”

Mother-daughter relationships figure prominently in the novel, and this quotation suggests how they change over time. The burden of understanding shifts from one to the other as each tries to connect.

“Nobody suspects a little old lady with dementia of killing people.”

This comment indicates the deceptive nature of appearances. The quotation shows the way that Mrs. Andrews took advantage of her audience’s expectations to get away with murder. Appearing to lose her mental faculties enabled her to indulge her obsessive need to get revenge for Anna’s pain and abandonment of her.

“That’s when I understood that by punishing the people who hurt her in the past, I could give her a happier future. I had to kill them all. I did it for her.”

Mrs. Andrews echoes the sentiment with which she began the novel. Only Anna matters to her. The mother-daughter relationship is toxic and completely consumes Mrs. Andrew. She never experiences any remorse for her actions but only reaffirms the necessity of her multiple homicides.