Don't Let Him In

“My time here in this stultifying, unsatisfying place is drawing to an end. I can feel it sliding away, like a dropped silk scarf running between my fingers.”

Nick feels limited and trapped by his relationship because his only real interest is in novelty and his own pleasure. The simile in which he compares the end of a four-year marriage to dropping a silk scarf trivializes the significance of the relationship by portraying its loss as something that happens casually and carelessly. That he imagines the scarf as silk conjures the tactile image of the cool, smooth material sliding over fingertips—a pleasurable sensation that makes it clear how pleased he will be to be rid of his marriage.

“[I]t’s why I work so hard to maintain my charming exterior, because my interior is a chaotic hellscape beyond anyone’s possible imaginings.”

Although Nick creates a lavish lifestyle for himself by conning others instead of working at a traditional job, his “work” is still taxing. Maintaining his facade is a real effort; the charming, warm, easy-going persona he projects does not reflect the reality of his emotional life and worldview in any way. Charged diction like “chaotic” and “hellscape” emphasizes how troubled he is and foreshadows the terrible actions he is capable of.

“[B]y the time I get home, I’m ready to fuck my wife, and I do […] making it all about her, but in fact it’s all about the Bambi girl and the way she made me feel with those jerky little movements of her head on her tiny, delicate neck.”

Nick’s crude diction makes it clear how little regard he has for his wife. Although he has earlier made a claim to a dark and chaotic inner life, this is the first moment in the text that reveals specific details of this darkness. His allusive metaphor comparing the young woman he frightened on the street to the fictional deer Bambi casts her in the role of prey and himself in the role of predator. That he is capable of real violence against women is implied in the descriptive details he shares about being aroused by the physical signs of her fear—her “jerky little movements”—and his fixation on the fragility of her neck. This foreshadows his later murder of his wife Tara.

“My voice is soft and emotional and it’s not fake—it really isn’t. […] And this woman is remarkable. She really is. I can feel my destiny is to be with her.”

Nick’s inability to understand himself is illustrated through his pattern of quickly deciding that he is in love with each new woman, each of whom he will inevitably end up despising. He is sure that his feelings are sincere, but the structure of his language undercuts this certainty: If his feelings were genuine, he would not need to reaffirm them with phrases like “it really isn’t” and “She really is,” as if he is responding to his own subconscious objections. Part of Nick’s ability to be so persuasive with others is his ability to half-convince himself that his lies are the truth; this is an important factor in Nick’s manipulation of his targets and develops the theme of The Insidious Nature of Psychological Manipulation.

“The inappropriate joke hits the spot with Troy, who snorts with dry laughter, but I clock a red flush passing across Jonah’s cheeks, and I store it away for the future.”

In the early days of getting to know Martha’s children, Nick watches them as carefully as he watches the women he manipulates. He takes note of what makes Jonah uncomfortable, knowing that this is a weak spot he can take advantage of over time. No one—not even a child—is exempt from Nick’s predatory approach to relationships. Later, his supposed empathy for Jonah’s gender dysphoria will be part of what makes Martha trust Nick.

“She feels panic grip her gut as she steps off the quiet train and heads into the maelstrom of St. Pancras.”

Ash’s panic is personified as something capable of gripping her, conveying the intensity of her feelings as she returns to London for the first time in 18 months. The metaphor comparing the movement of people in the busy train station to a “maelstrom” suggests how overwhelmed she is and how afraid she is of being swept away by her feelings. This vivid description of her emotions increases suspense about what happened to her when she was living in London—a question that the narrative is finally about to answer.

“Nick is already there and climbs loftily from the low seat of some kind of performance car that Ash didn’t know he owned.”

Ash sees that Nick is driving an expensive car, but she can only vaguely describe it as “some kind of performance car” because she is not impressed by material possessions. The characterization of Nick’s movement as “loftily” climbing from the car highlights how different he is from Ash—to him, the car’s status matters a great deal. There is dramatic irony in the image of him haughtily rising from a “low seat” because the reader knows what Ash doesn’t: Nick’s position in the world is much lower than he pretends.

“She made choices, she allowed it all to happen. I don’t want to say that she was stupid, but yes, fuck it. She was stupid. Stupid for love.”

Nick blames Tara for the predicament he has created in her life. This is part of his pattern of not accepting responsibility for his own predatory actions: He blames others for being gullible and desperate to be loved. The syntax of the passage places Tara in the subject position—“She made,” “she allowed,” “She was”—emphasizing her agency and obscuring Nick’s role in targeting her. The anadiplosis in “She was stupid. Stupid for love” emphasizes Nick’s low opinion of Tara’s intelligence, but his blame of Tara, whom the narrative shows to be intelligent and competent, highlights The Universality of Vulnerability to Scams.

“Oh, you poor, sweet thing. You are so, so sweet. And I get it, I really do. I am always the unreliable narrator in my life.”

After Ash explains how her erratic behavior in London impacts both her own and others’ perceptions of her reliability, Jane’s response shows her to be an empathetic and caring person, helping to advance the theme of The Importance of Women Helping Other Women. When Jane calls herself the “unreliable narrator” in her own life, she does not mean that she is actually inaccurate or untruthful—she means that she is treated like an unreliable narrator by others, and so she can completely understand Ash’s concerns about not being believed.

“[H]e always struck me as a great husband, a great father, just a, you know, a really decent human being. I’m sure he doesn’t mean your mother any ill will.”

Nick claims that he can swindle women and leave them still convinced he is a wonderful person—and Sarah’s description of “Justin” suggests that his estimation of his own abilities is correct. Even after 12 years’ worth of reflection and maturing, Sarah still believes Nick is a great guy. Sarah’s final statement creates dramatic irony, as the narrative has already revealed that Nick is a terrible person who does, in fact, mean to cause Nina harm.

“I think, I really do think, he’s starting to feel safe. He’s starting to feel settled. He just needed a place to lay his hat, you know. He just needed…us.”

Martha is eager to be the special exception, the woman who makes the world safe for her mysterious and troubled husband, and so she grasps at any evidence that this is true, ignoring the plentiful evidence to the contrary. She uses the idiomatic expression “a place to lay his hat” to assert that she and the children provide the secure home that he needs to settle down, but her nervous affirmation in “I think, I really do” and her bid for agreement in “you know” reveal that, deep down, she is less sure of Alistair than she pretends.

“I see the color in her face change from a hot red to a bruised blue, even her eyes change color, and I find myself mesmerized by her face as it fills with blood […] I feel a sense of calm swell through me, a dreadful certainty about what I’m doing.”

Nick finds himself “mesmerized” by the changing colors in Tara’s face as he strangles her, fascinated instead of horrified at the effects his violence is having on her body. This is a turning point for Nick, who has never lost control before and who has, until this moment, taken pride in the fact that he has never physically harmed a woman. His “calm” and “certainty” about what he is doing hint that in the future, he will not face the same psychological barriers—he has learned that, for him, violence is an acceptable solution when he is cornered.

“And now here she is again, obsessing over another middle-aged man, maybe about to blow up her life again. But she can’t help it. She has to protect her mother, at any cost.”

Ash’s metaphorical comparison of her experiences in London to the blast of a bomb emphasizes the massive impact her stalking her colleague had on her life. That she is willing to take the risk of such a serious destabilization of her life again to protect Nina is a testament to her deep love for her mother and her sense of responsibility to those she loves. It is also part of the story’s arguments about The Importance of Women Helping Other Women, as she is seeking the truth that Nina is unable or unwilling to believe.

“She realizes that for months she’s been nudging this knowledge around her consciousness like a football, without ever seeing the goalposts, but now she sees them and she’s ready to kick it straight through them.”

The simile comparing Martha’s understanding to a soccer ball conveys how aimless her thinking has been up until this point; even though her thoughts have been under her control, she cannot direct them productively, as if the “goalposts” are missing from the pitch. Now, however, she has reached a turning point: She sees the “goalposts”—the conclusion that her husband is having an affair—and she is ready to accept the truth.

“God it was brilliant, quite, quite brilliant […] something changed inside me after that day. I evolved.”

The repetition in the phrase “brilliant, quite, quite brilliant” emphasizes Nick’s pride and excitement as he recalls killing and dismembering Tara. He feels more powerful and more alive when he thinks about the murder; what has “changed” inside him is that he is no longer hiding from himself how aroused he is by the idea of violence. His language and the idea that he “evolved” allude to his sense that he has grown into a new version of himself and imply pride in the transformation.

“The passage from attentive, present husband in the early months and years of their relationship to the constantly absent, unreliable, and noncommunicative husband of the past two years had been slow, like water torture: she hadn’t noticed it until it was destroying her life.”

Martha’s reflections on how her life with Alistair has changed speak to the universality of vulnerability to scams: Like anyone else, she would not initially have agreed to a relationship as problematic as the one she eventually found herself in. A good con artist like Nick, however, understands exactly how to gradually increase what his victim will accept over time. Martha compares this experience to water torture: The simile conveys a sense of the gradual erosion of her boundaries, unnoticed by her until it is too late.

“Why does everything I try to build crumble upon impact with reality?”

As is often the case, Nick is very close to understanding himself in this moment, but he refuses to push through to the hard truth underlying what he has observed. He sees that there is something incompatible about his dreams and reality, but he blames bad luck instead of confronting the truth: He lacks the self-discipline and humility required to slowly build toward the world of his imagination, instead expecting it to be simply handed to him.

“[S]hortly after my interaction with the young Paddy in Mayfair […] I met my first client and realized there were more ways of getting through life than chasing stupid careers from the bottom end of the ladder and being spoken to like dirt by small […] men with big egos.”

Although Nick has always dreamed of owning a restaurant, as he thinks about slowly building up to this dream “from the bottom end of the ladder,” he calls it a “stupid” profession, childishly pretending that he is the one doing the rejection instead of the one being rejected. Nick’s characterization of Paddy as a “small” man with a “big” ego conveys his jealousy and his outraged belief that, as a conventionally attractive man from a privileged background, he is innately more deserving than Paddy. It is Paddy’s success, more than Paddy’s words, that actually makes Nick feel “like dirt.”

“There’s always been something fragile about Ash, an ongoing fantasy, as if she were living inside the pages of a novel.”

Nina’s characterization of Ash is ironic on several levels. There is a humorous metafictional irony, as Ash quite literally only lives “inside the pages of a novel”—this novel. Nina’s mention of the letters Ash purportedly received from her boss also ironically foreshadows the revelation that Ash is not living in a fantasy at all—the letters were real and a part of Nick’s scheme to manipulate Ash into believing she had a secret relationship with Ritchie Lloyd. This assessment of Ash also cuts against her actions in the novel, which demonstrate strength, intelligence, and a loyalty to the mother that is calling her “fragile.”

“The world, she now knows, is not what it seems. Nobody is what they seem. Everything is an illusion.”

The absolutes in Ash’s sentiments—“nobody” and “everything”—create a hyperbolically pessimistic view of the world. The way that uncovering the truth about Nick has changed her worldview demonstrates the serious impact that con artists like Nick have on the people around them.

“I’ve learned my lesson. I will dedicate the rest of my life to making Martha happy. […] And then it will be me who turns heads when I walk into the establishment […] There will be photographs of me in lifestyle coffee-table books.”

Nick yet again fools himself into thinking that he can function as a consistent and loving partner to Martha and be a financial success. That this is a delusion has already been made clear by his past pattern of behavior and is also suggested now by the way he imagines himself in Paddy’s shoes—wealthy, widely admired, and celebrated. The ordinary, moderate successes gained by hard work and perseverance will never be enough for him.

“You all wanted me, I want to say. You all had gaping voids in your lives, and you all invited me to fill them. I did not force one of you to choose me. Not one of you.”

Nick’s instant reaction to seeing his victims assembled is to minimize his responsibility and emphasize theirs. This is a key part of the insidious nature of psychological manipulation that Nick engages in—he can do what he does because he protects himself from understanding the impact he has on others and blames his targets for their own victimization. This allows him to appear completely sincere in presenting himself as a good person.

“My mother had loved me. My father had loved me too. But neither of them had loved me enough to give me what I truly needed.”

The truth about Nick’s childhood is finally revealed—he is not the traumatized son of an uncaring mother and an abusive, narcissistic father. He is the spoiled child of two wealthy people who gave him everything and showered him with love. That this was not enough for Nick—and that he associates a lack of instant fulfillment of his lavish dreams with a lack of love—shows that he is a bottomless well of need that can never be filled by real-world accomplishments and relationships.