A Stranger in the House

Tom Krupp is Karen’s husband. He is a complex secondary protagonist. Tom works as a chartered accountant at a large firm. Tom is trusting, an idealist, and something of a romantic, which leads him to overlook the darker aspects of life.

At the opening of the novel, Tom is entirely convinced of his wife’s essential innocence. Although he found her lack of past ties a little odd, it did not lead him to become suspicious of her in any way. His understanding of her begins to shift following the car accident and the subsequent revelations about the murder. He is troubled by the lies she has told. He is particularly troubled by the realization that “on the day of their wedding, she was already legally married to someone else […] Her vows were meaningless” (173). His focus on this aspect of her fraud is telling. He is most concerned that the idealized life he was living—married in the suburbs—was not what it had seemed. Tom’s focus on his feelings about Karen’s admission of having left an abusive husband makes him seem a little callous, as he should be more concerned with what she went through. However, he is not cruel; he is simply inexperienced, immature, and overwhelmed.

Tom’s immaturity is most evident in his affair with Brigid. He largely blames the affair on her, thinking to himself that she “had tricked him into an affair” (147, emphasis added) by coming on to him and claiming that she was going to leave her husband. This reasoning shows Tom’s reluctance to accept his own agency: As an adult, he was an equal party to the affair. After the affair ended, he further showed his immaturity by not only not disclosing it to his wife, but also by feeling resentful of Brigid’s close relationship with Karen. Tom tries to evade thinking through the consequences of his poor decision-making by drinking excessively when under strain. This intoxication in part leads to his “succumb[ing]” to Brigid’s flirtations when Karen is in jail.

Tom redeems himself by the end of the novel. He cuts off all contact with Brigid, fully devotes himself to Karen, finds another job, and does not blame Karen for the events that have transpired. He is profoundly changed by the ordeal. He reflects that he will “never again live in a comfortable, unsuspecting bubble, thinking that nothing bad is ever going to happen. He knows better now” (297). It is strongly implied that Tom knows his wife is a murderer, but he is willing to stay with her because he believes her a victim.

Brigid Cruikshank is the complex antagonist of A Stranger in the House and a foil for Karen. A foil is a character who contrasts with the protagonist to emphasize their character. Brigid is married to Bob Cruikshank, the owner of three funeral homes in the area. She is unhappy in her marriage because she desperately wants to have a child, but she has thus far been unable to conceive with her husband. She left her job as a manager to devote herself more fully to fertility treatments which “hadn’t worked.” Over time, her desire to have a child and her resentment of those who do have children has made her bitter and isolated. For instance, she left her knitting circle because there were “too many women happily knitting baby things” (89). She has a giant hole in her life, which she fills by obsessing over Tom and Karen Krupp.

Brigid pursues an affair with Tom Krupp seemingly as an escape from her unfulfilling marriage and life more generally. She becomes infatuated with him. This infatuation apparently leads her to act irrationally and obsessively. As Tom states, “[S]he’s obsessed with you, Karen, and even more obsessed with me. She sits in that living room window and […] watches everything we do because she’s in love with me” (253). When Tom marries Karen, Brigid’s resentment of her boils over and she uses the events of August 13th as an opportunity to get Karen out of Brigid’s life on a more permanent basis.

Brigid’s manipulative behavior toward Tom and Karen and her desire to take over Karen’s identity present an important parallel with Karen’s manipulation. Like Karen, Brigid will do whatever it takes to get what she wants. They both recognize that Tom is “easy enough to manipulate” (147). Brigid plans to adopt a new identity—that of Karen’s—just as Georgina adopted Karen’s identity. Brigid thinks to herself, “If she is going to slip into Karen Krupp’s life, she’s going to do it right” (238). Unlike Karen, however, Brigid plans are thwarted when she goes too far by planting the gun in the Krupp residence, making herself a suspect in the investigation. Further, Brigid’s husband Bob does not stand by her as Tom stands by Karen. She is ultimately left alone, but she is not without hope: She still plans to be in Tom’s life because she is pregnant with his child.