Don't Let Him In

Nick is the story’s antagonist and the narrator of all but one of the story’s first-person chapters. His real name is Simon Smith; he is a silver-haired conman who enters into relationships with various women and then embezzles their money and leaves them in debt. His only other source of income is his secret career as a sex worker and escort. When he enters the Swann family’s lives, he is using the name Nick Radcliffe and pretending to be the owner of a London wine bar.

Nick is a calculating, shrewd man whose lack of empathy for others and deep understanding of human nature combine to allow him to manipulate the women in his life effectively and take advantage of them without remorse. Nick is aroused by the sense of power he gets by making others afraid and is quick to anger, often having violent thoughts about the women in his life. He kills his wife Tara when she discovers his scheming, and as he does, he realizes that he has an affinity for violence that he never knew. He fixates on his own desires and grievances and coldly abandons not only several wives but also several children. Nick believes that his good looks and superficial charm entitle him to be treated with deference, and he burns with rage when he does not receive it or when he sees people he deems inferior being offered respect instead of him, as when he sees people’s treatment of Paddy and immediately targets his family as revenge.

Although he has a keen understanding of how other people think, Nick is, ironically, a person who fundamentally fails to understand himself. He repeatedly meets women that he believes he could sincerely love, only to become disillusioned because he does not recognize that he is incapable of genuine love for another person. He claims to be sincere when he tells these women that the large sums of money they give him are loans that he will repay, but he always squanders the money and finds himself unable to repay it. He believes himself to be “a proud man” with “drive and ambition” and is unable to admit to the contradictions between his portrayal of himself and his actual behavior (94). Nick is a static character, as his motivations and rationale don’t change over the course of the novel. Instead, he becomes an even more extreme version of himself as he goes to greater and greater lengths to get what he wants, evolving only in his greater understanding of how violence excites him and contributes to his fulfillment.

Nina Swann is Ash and Arlo’s mother and Paddy’s widow. She is in her early fifties and, prior to her husband’s death, worked part-time for a produce importing business. In the wake of Paddy’s death, Nina is forced to take over running his restaurants. She finds the unfamiliar work exhausting, but her sense of responsibility to her husband’s legacy and her family’s well-being drives her to succeed at it.

Nina is a devoted mother, taking Ash in when her daughter’s experiences in London overwhelm her and derail her career and personal life. She offers her children physical affection and uses terms of endearment to address them. She also refuses to criticize her sometimes problematic husband in front of Ash and Arlo. On the other hand, she also has a clear view of her children’s flaws, as her Chapter 61 conversation with Nick makes clear. However, Nina doesn’t completely understand her children, as evidenced by her characterization of Ash as “fragile” and her unwillingness to believe Ash’s account of Nick’s transgressions. Over the course of the novel, Nina changes, making her a dynamic character, as she comes to a new understanding of her daughter and works to rebuild their relationship and the family.

For many years, Nina compromised in order to provide a stable and happy home for her husband and children. She lives in a house that is too large and elaborate for her taste, and when Paddy was alive, she put up with his long hours and his often self-centered behavior. In the wake of Paddy’s death, she is ready to start living more for herself, leading her to date Nick, despite Ash’s discomfort with the idea. After the devastating truth about Nick is revealed, she decides to sell the house and take on a business partner so that she can begin to live the kind of life that actually suits her best, highlighting her further growth toward developing an identity independent of her late husband’s.

Martha is a florist in Kent, in a village near Whitstable. She believes herself to be married to a man named Alistair Grey, but in reality, her partner is Nick Radcliffe (Simon Smith), using another of his many aliases. Martha has two teenage boys from an earlier relationship and one much younger daughter, fathered by “Alistair.”

Before being worn down by her relationship with Alistair, Martha was a successful businesswoman, full of life and confidence. After several years with her husband, however, she has become isolated from her family and friends and insecure about her own desirability. Over time, she has learned to accept behavior from her husband that she would never have accepted in the early days of their relationship. The changes in her character over time illustrate that, when skillful manipulation is applied, even bright and capable people can fall victim to con artists, helping to support the novel’s themes of The Insidious Nature of Psychological Manipulation and The Universality of Vulnerability to Scams.

Despite how worn-down and confused she has become after years of living with Nick, Martha shows courage and determination when she finally accepts the truth about the man she has married. She bravely maintains contact with “Alistair” and, ironically, proves herself to be just as good at acting as he is, convincing him that she suspects nothing and setting him up for the confrontation with the women he has abused and defrauded. Martha’s arc throughout the novel involves coming to terms with the reality of life with her husband and, further, taking steps toward ending their relationship and holding him accountable for his actions.