Love in the Time of Serial Killers
53 pages • 1-hour read
Alicia ThompsonLove in the Time of Serial Killers
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Symbols & Motifs
Famous Killers
Phoebe is a doctoral student writing her dissertation on true crime books, and her dissertation process is a major facet of the novel. Her inner monologues often focus on killers whose high-profile cases unfolded in the public eye and captured the attention of countless Americans. She mentions Jon Benet’s murderer, Ted Bundy, Charles Manson, and even the fictional figure Buffalo Bill from the novel-turned-film The Silence of the Lambs. This motif helps the author explore The Societal Fascination With True Crime as a theme and provide depth and social context to a novel largely devoted to love and romance.
Phoebe’s dissertation topic is particularly relevant now, as societal interest in true crime has skyrocketed and, during the first two decades of the 21st century in particular, true crime has become a multi-billion-dollar genre. The argument Phoebe makes in her dissertation is relevant, complex, and nuanced: She notes how true crime from each particular era since the breakout success of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood has reflected the societal fears, beliefs, and values of the time it was produced. True crime stories from the 1960s reveal widespread fears about a rapidly changing, increasingly liberal society. True crime stories from the 1980s and 1990s, she points out, are more lurid and sensationalized, revealing a society more desensitized to violence but also fearful of new kinds of criminals. This shift reflects 1980s and 1990s-era increases in urban crime and the massive, now-unpopular crime bill that labeled repeat offenders “super-predators” and sought to decrease crime through punitive measures and harsher sentencing rather than rehabilitation.
However, Phoebe’s fixation on high-profile criminals and serial killers also becomes a coping mechanism for her, a way to create emotional distance during difficult conversations. When confronted with a chance to reflect on her family’s history or a fractured personal relationship, Phoebe initially changes the topic of conversation, steering the focus toward a particular killer’s case that she finds relevant. As such, her fascination with serial killers is part of the author’s thematic exploration of Complicated Familial Relationships. Phoebe finds it easier to analyze a serial killer with whom she has no personal connection than to face hard truths about how her childhood trauma continues to shape her emotional life. Only at the end of the novel, after Conner, Shani, and Allison point this habit out to her multiple times and she has the occasion to reflect, does she fully separate her academic interest in true crime from how she has been using analysis of serial killers as a way to avoid self-analysis.
Phoebe and Conner’s Father’s House
Phoebe temporarily moves into her childhood home at the beginning of the novel so that she and brother Conner can prepare it for sale. The house is one of the novel’s most important symbols: It represents not only the fractured nature of Phoebe and Conner’s childhood but also the healing process from which they both emerge stronger and better equipped to leave their shared trauma in the past. As such, the symbolism of the house helps the author explore both Complicated Familial Relationships and Personal Growth and Identity Development as themes.
Phoebe and Conner grow up in a family that is first marred by the emotional abuse of their father’s rage and then fractured by divorce. Their parents never modeled healthy, loving relationships for them. Not only was their parents’ marriage deeply unhealthy, but each parent also struggled to relate to their children in a supportive and authentic way. Phoebe and Conner were close as young children, but after the divorce they grew apart as each moved in with one of their parents and saw less of each other. Thus, in addition to not having good relationships with their parents, they couldn’t develop a healthy sibling bond. Each emerged from childhood with a different set of responses to the fractured nature of their familial bonds. Conner sought therapy and took concrete steps not to duplicate his parents’ troubled relationship, but Phoebe found herself almost entirely unable to form emotional bonds.
The house, when she moves back into it, is messy and cluttered. It’s evident that her father didn’t try to keep it neat and tidy or perform any of the larger maintenance tasks that home ownership requires. The state of the house thus symbolizes the emotional health of its former inhabitants, especially Phoebe: She’s capable of neither the casual interpersonal interactions that everyday life necessitates nor the bigger-picture relationships that characterize a healthy emotional life. As she and Conner clear the house of clutter and do their best to make it presentable for sale, Phoebe likewise undergoes a period of personal growth and reflection. She processes both alone and with Conner, thinking critically about how her childhood impacted her and about what kind of life she wants to live going forward. By the time the house is clean and ready for sale, Phoebe has done some emotional “cleaning house” too and has a better understanding of how not to replicate her parents’ tendencies toward aloofness and emotional distance. The fact that Conner and Shani choose to move into the house speaks to the potential of individuals, not just for growth but to rewrite their personal narratives and reshape their lives: The house changes from a symbol of trauma and chaos to one of newfound happiness and dedication to loving, supportive relationships.
The Nutella Pie
Phoebe’s character arc is a significant aspect of the novel as a whole. She begins the story as an emotionally wounded character who struggles to form and maintain meaningful connections. Her healing process and the self-reflection that drives it are the primary ways that the author explores Personal Growth and Identity Development as a theme. Although Phoebe emerges as a self-actualized, emotionally healthy individual only at the end of the novel, crucial steps along the way illustrate her growth process. The Nutella pie she bakes for Sam becomes one of those steps and thus symbolizes personal growth.
Phoebe places emotional distance between family members, friends, and potential romantic partners, noting at many points how few friends and personal connections she has. She has inured herself to this kind of life and actively avoids emotional connectivity to avoid disappointment and rejection, but even at the novel’s beginning she signals her desire for a long-term romantic partner. Sam, Phoebe’s love interest, then becomes more than a potential “hook up.” He represents Phoebe’s need for a meaningful partnership and her inability to let herself become close to a romantic partner. She places emotional distance between herself and him at multiple points during the early stages of their relationship, but the moment when she prepares the Nutella pie is a turning point: She gives it to him not only to thank him for fixing her car but also because she hopes that the gesture will make up for some of the prickly comments she made to him during one of their many stilted conversations. She does her best to remain calm and respectful when she brings him the pie, and she even stays to eat some of it with him. Although at this point she’s mimicking what she thinks “normal” behavior looks like, her act of kindness becomes a rubric for other, more meaningful ways that she makes herself emotionally available to Sam as their relationship progresses.
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