Don't Let Him In

“Ash slams the album shut and grabs her wineglass, tips it back, ignores the sugary, cloying warmth of it in her mouth, the way it leaches into the stale insides of her cheeks.”

The vivid gustatory imagery in this passage emphasizes the way a normally pleasurable activity like drinking wine has turned unpleasant in the wake of Paddy’s death. Ash’s fragile emotional state is conveyed as she downs the wine regardless of how “cloying” it is and notices it “leaching” into the “stale” insides of her cheeks. This diction portrays the wine as an unwelcome, invasive substance and Ash herself as dried out and made vulnerable by grief.

“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.