The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Henry Strauss is a young New York bookseller on the cusp of 30. Like Luc, he has curly black hair and green eyes. His green eyes are paler, however, and Addie characterizes him as a more realistic—and more human—version of the demonic stranger she invented in her mind. For example, when Addie has sex with Henry for the first time, she recalls, “They do not fit together perfectly. He was not made for her the way Luc was—but this is better, because he is real, and kind, and human, and he remembers” (188).

His entire life, Henry struggles with depression, which he copes with primarily through the abuse of substances including alcohol and benzodiazepines. Even after Luc grants him his wish to be loved by all, Henry turns again to alcohol and pills to deal with the fact that none of the affection directed toward him is “real.” It is only after he meets Addie that he learns to feel comfortable in his own skin, without the need for drugs or alcohol.

While the curse transforms Addie from a woman who frantically fears death into an aimless wanderer, the effect of Henry’s curse is the reverse. For most of his life, Henry has dabbled in literature, theology, and photography, never developing the confidence to throw his full energy into any of these pursuits. After his curse—and particularly after he meets Addie—Henry grows obsessed with extracting the most pleasure and excitement out of every moment, before he is doomed to die an early death at Luc’s hands.

Ultimately, Addie sacrifices herself to save Henry’s life. To honor Addie, Henry publishes her journals under her own name as a book. Although he does not put his name on the book, he reaps the rewards of its success. In fact, his decision to publish the book without using his own name may even help his literary career, given that many view this choice as a successful gimmick.

The stranger is a supernatural entity—what Estele would call “an old god”—who appears to Addie as Luc, a young man she concocted in her imagination. As dictated by Addie’s specifications, Luc is tall with dark, curly hair and glimmering green eyes. In those eyes, Addie reads the subtle vacillations of Luc’s moods, from curiosity to fury to mischief to disappointment.

At first, Luc behaves as a stock Faustian devil, granting Addie’s wish in return for her soul while adding onerous caveats to the deal that make Addie regret she agreed to it. As the narrative progresses, however, Luc grows into a fully formed character with his own jealousies, desires, and regrets. As the only individual, human or otherwise, who remembers Addie, Luc develops a strange kinship with her over their shared loneliness and immortality. Even after they embark on a sexual relationship, however, Addie repeatedly reminds Luc that whatever he feels for her is not love. With respect to Addie, he only desires to control her, in a compulsion that turns obsessive the longer she refuses to yield her soul to him.

In this dynamic, Luc is indistinguishable from an abusive partner. From the beginning, the conditions he sets up for Addie—which result in her starving and freezing without even the prospect of death to deliver her from pain—constitute physical abuse. In at least one instance, this physical abuse is direct, as Luc sends daggers of pain throughout Addie’s body in a show of his power. It is only when Addie defies him by telling him to go to hell that Luc eases the pain, as he moves onto a different strategy of control.

At the end of the book, Luc’s desire to possess and control Addie is so strong that he does something unprecedented for a Faustian devil: He lets one of his victims out of a deal. Addie vows to make Luc regret this decision by making his life miserable for as long as they are together, even if it takes centuries for him to let her go.

Estele is Addie’s elderly neighbor in Villon, spending her entire life alone and in commune with the spirits of the forest. For young Addie, Estele models a lifestyle that is far preferable to a domestic trap of cooking, cleaning, and childrearing, to which Addie fears she is doomed. After Addie is cursed, she is most devastated when Estele does not remember her. Even worse, the old woman chastises Addie upon learning that she broke Estele’s one rule regarding her ancient spiritualism: Do not pray to gods who answer after dark.

When Addie returns to Villon years after Estele’s death, Luc taunts her for being unable to sit by the old woman’s side when she died. Addie is further upset by the fact that Estele is buried alongside other graves in a Christian cemetery, when her body belongs deep in the woods, reclaimed by the undergrowth. As a tribute, Addie plants a tree over her gravestone, but decades later she returns to find someone chopped it down. The absence of the tree severs Addie’s final ties to Villon, and she never returns home again.