57 pages • 1 hour read
Taylor AdamsThe Last Word
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Immersion in Fiction as an Escape From Reality
Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of mental health conditions, suicidal ideation, child death, and substance use disorder.
Throughout the novel, several key characters indulge in fiction to alter their reality or to escape from it altogether, and even the quasi-epistolary structure of the novel is designed to heighten this effect, for the details provided from each perspective are shaded with different biases. Most significantly, Emma’s reality is frequently contrasted with Deek’s book-within-a-book, Murder Beach, and his strategic shifts from the “real” events of the main plotline demonstrate his attempts to changes aspects of reality that do not suit his own personal narrative. By shifting rapidly back and forth between these two perspectives during the novel’s most action-packed moments, Adams emphasizes Deek’s fixation on using fiction to reshape events into a form that flatters his own ego and supports his expectations. For instance, while in reality, Emma taunts the attacking Howard with a message on the window that reads “Amateur,” the narration of Murder Beach changes this message to a plaintive plea of “Please don’t kill me” (157). The fictionalized version of Emma’s message portrays her as weak and fearful of her attacker rather than contemptuous and strong. With this pointed shift, Deek denies Emma’s innate strength and presence of mind, rewriting the essence of her character to fit his warped narrative.
Similar conflations of reality and fiction occur when Howard’s hand is seen to be trembling, for despite this indication of doubt, Deek’s narration in Murder Beach recasts the killer as perfectly calm, with a hand that is “perfectly still.” After the narrative finally reveals that Deek is the true author of Murder Beach, Deek directly acknowledges his own attempts to fictionalize reality when he admits, “I’m trying to write Howard to be scarier. More evil, cold, calculating” (416). This stylistic choice on his part accounts for many of the discrepancies between the fictional and real-life accounts of Howard attacking Emma.
This theme is further developed through Emma’s reading habits, especially when she uses books like Murder Mountain to escape her current reality as she struggles to accept the loss of her infant daughter. The escapism of her mindset is revealed when she thinks, “It’s nice to submerge yourself in someone else’s world, to luxuriate in the handcrafted details and admire the false ceilings” (20). Her commitment to temporarily escaping life by immersing herself in fiction reflects the desperation of her mindset, for as the narrative reveals, she is also prone to frequent bouts of suicidal ideation. However, rather than following through on her plans to die by suicide and escape the world for good, she chooses a far less drastic form of escape whenever she numbs her feelings through fiction. This fixation also explains her vehemently negative review of Kane’s novel, for his inept writing style deprives her of the full immersion that she seeks.
Using Metafiction to Critique the Writing Craft
Throughout the novel, Adams uses the characters’ dialogue and interactions to critique many different aspects of the writing craft and the quirks of the publishing industry. For instance, when he reveals that Howard’s first abysmal book, Propeller Head, was published by a “vanity press,” it is clear that Jules paid to have it printed and bound. By contrast, Deek stands as an example of a writer who has succeeded in the elusive field of traditional publishing, but, over time, his fame wanes, and he stops writing new books. Deek therefore masterminds a violent plan to manipulate Howard into attacking Emma so that he himself can profit by writing a book about the incident, and the bloodthirsty nature of his zealous attempt at a comeback pokes fun at the desperation of has-been writers who have been cast aside by the publishing industry.
Additionally, Adams uses the novel to critique many common literary devices and tropes that appear within the horror genre. He therefore crafts Howard’s abortive writing to be almost laughably poor so that he can deliver an oblique criticism of the ineffectual plot points of poorly written fiction. For example, within the narrative context of Murder Beach, Deek observes that “nuanced character development had never been a particular strength in [Kane’s] writing” (125). This quote serves as a commentary on the low quality and innumerable quantity of cheap eBooks. Adams therefore implies that many horror stories, just like the abysmal Murder Mountain, feature flat, static characters and stale plotlines.
Like Deek, Emma hates Kane’s writing, and when Deek uses her negative review to convince Kane/Howard to attack Emma, this development is meant to ridicule the sensitivity that many real-life writers display in response to criticism. While Kane is an extreme example, his murderous activities serve as a hyperbole for such writers’ vehement defense of substandard work. Likewise, when Emma forces herself to read Murder Mountain, she notes that her consumption of books is “not about the story’s quality. It’s about distracting herself, putting her mind on a treadmill” (30). With the unique indifference of her mindset, she is generally unconcerned with the writer’s craft, but even so, Murder Mountain is so terrible that she cannot keep from writing a scathing review. Thus, through the guise of Emma’s review, Adams seizes the opportunity to expound on his own views about which stylistic elements separate a skillfully told story from an inept one. The novel’s quasi-epistolary structure also enables the author to pursue this broader message, for by juxtaposing passages that reflect different writing calibers, Adams offers up a direct comparison of contrasting narrative approaches, implicitly offering his readers the chance to become literary critics themselves.
Visions and Hauntings as Tools for Processing Grief
Given the extent of Emma’s self-isolation, the only actionable way to provide insight into her inner emotional crisis is to engineer the semblance of external interactions, and to this end, Adams employs frequent flashbacks, memories, and hallucinations that take on the tone of hauntings. Most frequently, Emma experiences moments in which she imagines conversations with her absent husband. Although these scenes are designed to create the false impression that her husband, like her daughter, is dead, Emma’s encounters also act as a concrete measure of her progress in processing her grief. To heighten these effects, Adams invokes the issue of mortality in various contexts throughout the novel, drawing attention to Emma’s preoccupation with death in all of its forms. For example, Emma evinces indifference at the thought of her “death [being] immortalized in a shitty e-book” (164), and her habit of carrying her daughter’s photograph in a locket implies that she carries the thought of death close to her heart in more ways than one.
Emma has struggled to find the will to live ever since the death of her infant daughter, and intermittent suicidal ideation heightens the dramatic tension, for her life is clearly endangered by both external and internal threats. As the narrative states, the car accident that killed Shelby “wrecked [Emma]. It built a great wall in her life between Before and After” (211). Emma’s inability to process her grief over Shelby in a healthy way leads her to isolate herself from her support system and make preparations for death by suicide. Even her most inconsequential thoughts reflect the dire state of her mindset, for she conflates past tragedies with her current crisis. When she reflects that she “will drown in seawater instead of box wine” (269), she is making an oblique comparison between her own plans and her mother’s demise due to alcohol use disorder.
The thematic use of hauntings also permeates the novel’s climactic moments. After Deek drugs her, Emma has visions of “a car full of slumped corpses riding to eternity, and of course the only person she wants to see isn’t here” (422). She wants to see Shawn, but in this moment, she only sees Jules, the delivery driver, and Howard, and these indirect “hauntings” emphasize the dire nature of her situation and imply that she may soon be numbered among the dead herself. However, yet another vision of the dead ironically saves her life even as it allows her to process her grief, for when Deek pushes Emma underwater, she has a vision of her dead daughter. Through the vehicle of this final vision, she is able to say goodbye to Shelby and regain the strength to rebuild her life.
