Themes
The Side Effects of Guilt
Anna’s guilt complicates her healing process as she unsuccessfully tries to move on from the trauma caused by the car accident, her time outside exposed to the elements, and the resulting deaths of Ed and Olivia. The harsh winter weather, combined with the injuries sustained by the car accident, lead directly to the deaths of Ed and Olivia, and Anna blames herself for everything that has happened due to her decision to have an affair with Dr. Wesley Brill.
To escape her guilt, Anna seeks solace in mind-altering substances; she drinks red wine heavily, and she often begins drinking in the morning. Anna breaks glasses and wine bottles with some frequency, which depicts a loss of physical control, and when people like the Russells and the police detectives enter her home, they immediately notice the empty bottles that litter her coffee table and kitchen counter. Descriptions of her hazy perceptions of the world inside and outside the walls of her home emphasize to the reader that much of what Anna experiences in the novel take place while she is under the influence of alcohol and drugs.
Anna’s reliance on substances, which is a side effect of her guilt, causes Anna even more difficulty as she tries to live with her agoraphobia. As a mental health professional with years of advanced training, Anna knows that mixing her psychotropic medications with alcohol is highly risky. Not only does mixing alcohol with her drugs reduce the efficacy of her medications, it also puts her at risk for harmful side effects like hallucinations, muddled cognition, and excessive sleepiness. All of these side effects come into play as Anna tries to convince the police and others that she has witnessed a murder. Because she is too often drunk or under the influence of alcohol and psychotropic medications combined, she is less trustworthy and less reliable. Ironically, the more she is disbelieved, the more Anna feels as if she is losing her grip on reality, but the consequences of her self-sabotage are only one more side effect of her unresolved guilt over the deaths of her husband and child, albeit a significantly damaging one.
Isolation and Confinement
Anna’s agoraphobia means that she lives a life characterized by isolation and confinement. Unable to go outdoors without sustaining a panic attack, Anna passes her days indoors, relying on the internet, her conversations with her dead husband and her child, and weekly visits from medical professionals like Dr. Fielding and Bina to keep her engaged with the world around her.
Anna’s fear of the outdoors manifests because of other isolating experiences she has chosen for herself. As a child psychologist, she works with patients in a confidential, one-on-one relationship. She must keep her dealings with her patients private, so the professional constraints of confidentiality set her up for an isolated work experience. Within this professional context, Anna develops another isolated relationship with her colleague and business partner, Dr. Wesley Brill. Together, they can share a sort of isolation. As business partners and colleagues, they can commiserate on their professional experiences, which facilitates their love affair; because Anna and Wesley are already accustomed to keeping the secrets of their patients, they are well-equipped to keep their affair a secret from Phoebe, their secretary, as well as from Ed, Anna’s husband. As a direct result of this affair, Anna finds herself in yet another isolated and confined position; this time, however, she is truly alone, which makes her vulnerable to attack.
The Fragility of Life
Key events in the plot of the novel involve random acts of unplanned violence that result in death. Anna witnesses the murder of Katie. Katie’s death is not a pre-meditated death, but merely the consequence of an unstable teenager’s impulsive response to a feeling of irritated impatience. As well, the flashbacks reveal the harsh conditions that surround the car accident in Vermont that kills Ed and Olivia; nature does not intend to cause injury or to kill, but death and loss are the natural consequences of a car driven by a distracted driver in the mountains of Vermont during a winter storm. Ethan’s death is the result of Anna’s instinctive need to defend herself and her memory of David’s observation that the skylight needs repair; at the time of Ethan’s death, Anna did not know that she would have to send him to his death in order to survive his assault, only that her survival depended on his demise.
All of these events illustrate the fragility of life. In Anna’s experience, life can end spontaneously; ironically, she comes to this realization as she engages in a long-term act of self-sabotage that leads eventually to her plan to take her own life. As Anna puts extra food in the cat’s bowl, she cancels appointments and spreads her inventory of medications on the coffee table. She shuts out the light by drawing the curtain, isolating herself even further into herself, and taking pains to hide the scene of her death for as long as possible. Anna’s plan to take her own life is premeditated, methodical, and rational, which contrasts with the random of acts of death elsewhere in the novel.
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