The Maid's Diary

“Deep inside Daisy is still the schoolgirl who snagged famous gold medal downhill ski racer and sex icon Jon Rittenberg when everyone else was throwing themselves at him.”

This quote reveals Daisy’s motivation for protecting Jon. This passage reveals the extent to which Daisy’s identity and self-esteem rely on being Jon’s wife. The words “deep inside” and “schoolgirl” reveal a vulnerability that adds some nuance of empathy for her and her motivations. This is part of the novel’s critique of the patriarchal power dynamic between men and women.

“We were just stupid kids who drank too much. Teens make terrible decisions all the time. Peer pressure. Herd mentality. Collective stupidity. Mix in equal amounts, and something dark, disturbing, primal takes over.”

Daisy is thinking back to the night when Jon and his friends raped Kit. Her words simultaneously acknowledge their horrific behavior and seek to mitigate it. Nowhere does she consider Kit, the target of this teen prank: The novel suggests that Daisy cannot let herself do this if she is to maintain her own psychological narrative.

“‘These people live in a glass box with no option to shut the world out? That’s kind of—’

‘Exhibitionist. Yeah. Fishbowl-like.’

‘I was going to say vulnerable,’ she says softly.”

Benoit and Mal are discussing the design of the Glass House. Where Benoit sees exhibitionism, Mal sees vulnerability, an example of the novel’s parallel perspectives. This passage highlights the Glass House is a symbol of truth and lies, foreshadowing Kit’s later decision to stage her big confrontation with Jon and Daisy at the Glass House because she wants everything out in the open.

“My therapist told me—when she was discussing trauma—that the body keeps the score even when the mind can’t. Sometimes a person has no reasonable narrative for a traumatic event, so the conscious mind blocks it completely, trying to act as though nothing unusual occurred. But the body remembers.”

Kit describes having a panic attack at the first sight of Jon’s ski paintings above the fireplace. While everyone else in her world has lied to her about the sexual assault, and she has even lied to herself, her body tells the truth. It can access memories that her traumatized brain refuses to acknowledge.

“This woman sees the hero in him. She knows him, is proud to have reveled in a part of his athletic life. She is thankful. This woman has plugged Jon directly into a magnetic current, and he feels that vestigial part of himself rising. It’s intoxicating. He’s alive again.”

Mia has just been praising Jon’s athletic performance from years earlier and he basks in the attention of a fan again. Jon is principally interested in Mia because she boosts his ego and this passage indicates his level of narcissistic self-involvement.

“I’ve created in myself a longing. Sometimes life direction is not a choice. It’s imposed on us. Against our will. But what if, years later, we get an opportunity to redress that? Like Mary. We choose a different path.”

Kit refers to Mary, the central character in one of her plays. This passage reveals how Kit uses her writing as a means to explore her own emotions and to explore possible paths. Kit writes the outcome of Mary’s life in three different ways based on the different decisions she makes along the way. These create another level of parallel narratives in the novel.

“Studiously avoiding the powerful paintings of BergBomber on the living room wall. I feel him, though. Like a presence. As if taunting me to look. Look, Kit! Look at me, the golden ski god. Did you not have a poster of me inside your locker, fat little Katarina Poop-ovich?”

This passage reveals Kit’s feelings about John to the reader, showing the effect of her trauma to foster empathy for her. John’s belittlement of Katarina, especially physically, highlights that rape is often about power rather than lust and contextualizes the sexual attack as part of a wider pattern of bullying and cruelty.

“The photographer waits awhile longer inside his dark vehicle. It begins to rain. No one exits the door. He starts his car and drives home, thinking about Rittenberg. People can seem so ordinary on the surface, but scratch the veneer and there’s always a secret beneath the gloss.”

The photographer has just followed the private detective back to his office. He had earlier seen Jon having a clandestine conversation with the man. Jon obviously has secrets that he wishes to hide. The photographer’s comment about appearance and reality echoes Kit’s many observations about the hypocrisy of false narratives. The detective’s inner monologue withholds the nature of his suspicions from the reader, creating suspense.

“Charley, I understand if you stalked him. I do. I really do. These things make a person crazy. Especially the spiked-drink shit, because you start questioning your own memories even as everyone is questioning you and your motivations. But you don’t deserve this. No woman deserves this.”

Kit empathizes with Charley, Jon’s earlier sexual assault target. She rightly points out that the greatest damage Jon does is to the psyche of his victims. They are drugged and unable to recall the attack. Witnesses negate their perception of reality to the point that they doubt their own sanity. Confusion turns to self-loathing so that both Charley and Kit believe they deserve bad treatment. This passage supports the novel’s exploration of mutual support between sexual assault survivors, especially women.

“His eyes flicker at her mention of staying in Vancouver if he loses the promotion. Mistake. Jon is not going to take loss well. Not at all. He has one plan only. Win. Just as he did when it came to downhill racing—he wanted the gold. There was no backup plan. No room for concession.”

Daisy’s narrative shows that she is starting to learn that her husband isn’t a good man. This echoes that, in his own chapters, Jon makes it clear that marrying Daisy and fathering a child were both means to solidify his position in the Wentworth family, revealing his selfish motives and making Daisy his dupe. Daisy’s increasing awareness also hints at the fear that she will be on the receiving end of his anger if he is disappointed.

“This is one of those secrets. It will destroy the Rittenbergs and everyone close to them if I tell. And if I don’t tell, it will destroy me. I have no choice. Not anymore.”

Kit has just found the NDAs and the ski lodge party video in Daisy’s safe which prove to her that her account of sexual assault was accurate. This passage sets up a zero-sum game of survival between Kit and her antagonist, suggesting that her revenge is of existential importance.

“High stakes. Dangerous. All about power. Money, too. Only certain A-type personalities with privilege can consistently excel—thrive—in a milieu like that. But those A-plus alphas come with other issues, too, right? Can’t have it both ways.”

Kit is disguised as Vanessa, and she makes this comment to Daisy after staging a scene with Boon as her controlling husband Haruto. She is playing on Daisy’s secret fear that her own alpha male husband possesses some unsavory traits. Kit’s words recall Daisy’s previously hinted fears about Jon and foreshadow the way he will behave later.

“Women like that just keep coming back for more—more money, more childcare, more attention. For as long as that child was alive, Jon would be chained in some way to its mother.”

Daisy is carrying on an internal monologue to justify manipulating Charley Waters into having an abortion. Her internal monologue secretly reveals that her motivation in protecting Jon’s reputation was really an attempt to preserve her own position and possessiveness of Jon. The words “women like that” and “that child” reveal Daisy’s callous victim-blaming and treatment of other people as expendable.

“It’s like she feels that if she hides in plain sight—behind her makeup, costumes, theatrical roles, her pretend Instagram life—then people won’t see past it all to the hidden, broken Kit. They won’t ask too many questions of her.”

Boon is being questioned about Kit by the detectives shortly after the crime is reported at the Glass House. At this point the novel shows Kit through Boon’s eyes, allowing the reader to compare his perception of her with her diary’s presentation of herself. Boon’s words reveal her vulnerability and his protectiveness.

“You won’t remember exactly what happened because of the spiked alcohol. You won’t be able to completely forget, either. You’ll spend the next day, the day after, the following weeks, months, years, decades trying to do both. Remember and forget. You both want to know and don’t.”

Kit writes this statement in her diary to describe the ordeal she experienced right after she was drugged and raped. Significantly, this description comes right after the chapters detailing Jon’s night in Mia’s apartment and parallels his panic and disorientation. This is part of the novel’s setup of moral equivalence between crime and punishment.

“Why did my mother do it? Why did Annabelle Wentworth, Daisy’s mother, protect her daughter’s predator boyfriend? Why do women betray other women like this? Are we so co-opted and dependent on some ingrained adherence to a patriarchy? Are we so afraid of ‘trouble’?”

Kit confides in her diary as she tries to process the betrayal that she experienced at the hands of everyone she trusted, especially the women who she expected better from. Kit struggles to understand the gendered nature of that betrayal without reaching any conclusion. It remains a mystery to her and a rhetorical question for the reader.

“This gives me purpose. This empowers and fires me. I don’t need justice. I need to stop him. And her. And others like her. Women like me—we need to show men they will not get away if they try something like this.”

Kit’s words “women like me” recall Daisy’s previous dismissive and victim-blaming phrase “women like her.” This reappropriation of the derogatory language is symbolic of Kit’s increasing confidence and reassertion, and her wish to rely on her own wits to create her own form of justice.

“He sees everyone watching, sitting there in their stupid Halloween costumes, gleams in their eyes. The kind of bloodthirsty gleam that comes when you see someone you don’t like being taken down. Maybe they always all hated him. Maybe he was a bully. Maybe he was just an arrogant ass, and what he sees in their eyes now is the gleam of schadenfreude.”

Jon loses his job on Halloween morning, and this disappointment foreshadows the crisis that the reader knows is imminent, heightening the narrative suspense and dramatic irony. Kit has set the stage for an unmasking on the holiday that celebrates the concept of false personas. This passage shows Jon’s increasing self-doubt as his former egotism deserts him.

“‘If we fail to embrace the lessons of the trickster, Kit,’ she says, ‘we deny ourselves the capacity to witness our own shadow.’ […] Mine is a game with purpose. But sometimes a game turns dangerous. Not everyone likes being tricked.”

Kit’s imaginary therapist gives her this advice about facing inner darkness. Tricksters embody duality. They are neither entirely good nor entirely bad and carry strong associations with Halloween itself in its “trick or treat” message. This quote suggests the peril that trickery holds. The Rittenbergs will not be amused by Kit’s pranks.

“‘Remember the newspaper headlines, Jon?’ Kat asks. ‘They read, “It Never Happened.” Tell me it did happen. Admit it. To my face. You raped me. You and your friends drugged and gang-raped me. I want to hear you say it.’”

Kit confronts him in the Glass House, where there is literally no place to hide. Everything is made visible here. She intends to expose the facts for all the world to see and demands the truth from a man whose life has been built on deception. Kit’s own description of the attack on her uses the plainest terminology to shock Jon and to highlight her sincerity and anger to the reader.

“‘I was set up. I was drugged and set up.’

‘Because you’re an asshole! Because you can’t think beyond your dick. You are a weak, vulnerable target. You and your fragile male ego.’”

Daisy makes this statement after Jon begins yet another round of excuses for his bad behavior with Mia. His wife finally realizes that Jon has been cheating on her for years to bolster his ego. Her words reveal what the other narratives have already shown: Jon’s bullying, chauvinism, and arrogance are a mask for his lack of healthy self-esteem.

“Why should we always ‘understand’ our abuser, the villains, the mendacity of evil, the people who let us down? Does understanding help us heal? I don’t think anything really heals trauma. You just find some kind of narrative to learn to cohabit with it.”

In this statement, Kit rejects the idea that victims should practice forgiveness. In the novel’s moral paradigm, the victim’s survival and wellbeing are paramount to other considerations.

“I don’t think Kit ever believed she’d be able to create a perfect murder that never happened […] She wanted to be seen. She wanted it all to play out live on TV, in social media, in conversation, speculation. A false narrative.”

Boon is telling the detectives his theory about Kit’s elaborate hoax. To this point in her life, she has been invisible because she didn’t want to be seen. Boon’s role at this point is to use his knowledge of Kit to undercut her, and the novel’s, representation of her aims and motives.