49 pages • 1-hour read
The Intruder
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Chapters 1-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of violence, emotional abuse, child abuse, bullying, and substance use.
Chapter 1 Summary: “Now: Casey”
Casey has been living in a cabin in the New Hampshire woods for seven months. One night, she prepares for a thunderstorm. She contacts her landlord Rudy about the flimsy roof, afraid it will cave in during the storm. Rudy stops over but refuses to do any repairs. Casey has been annoyed with him since moving into the home. She left her life in Boston after losing her teaching job and hasn’t been satisfied with “living off the grid” (2). Before Rudy leaves, Casey asks him to deal with the insecure tree out front, too.
Chapter 2 Summary
The narrative continues in Casey’s present timeline. Rudy assures Casey not to worry about the roof or tree but warns her the power might go out, and she could lose phone service, too. When he makes a pass at her, Casey grabs him and twists his arm. Furious, Rudy suggests she might not survive the storm. Casey is glad she has a gun in preparation of Rudy’s return.
Chapter 3 Summary
The narrative continues in Casey’s present timeline. The storm blows in. Casey collects some fallen branches and stows them in the toolshed, which she has rarely used otherwise. She hopes the wind doesn’t knock off its door. Inside the cabin, Casey notices the roof is leaking. She tapes the windows and door shut to ensure she’s safe. She collects some candles in case she loses power, distributing them in each room including her bedroom. She has slept alone for months and hasn’t minded. When she looks up, she sees a face in the window.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Before: Ella”
The narrative flashes back and introduces Ella, a high-school student. Ella gets sent to Principal Garber’s office for stealing another student’s lunch. Garber checks to see if she has food at home and reminds her she can take advantage of the school’s free lunch program. Outside in the hall, Ella runs into her classmate Anton Peterson. He’s always at the principal’s office, too, but dismisses Ella when she tries engaging him in conversation. Brittany Carter then heads into the office, which surprises Ella; Brittany is pretty, popular, and perfect. She learns that Brittany is getting picked up early for an appointment and wishes she were more like her.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Now: Casey”
The narrative returns to Casey’s present timeline. Casey screams when she sees the face, but it disappears as quickly as it appeared. She looks out all the windows but doesn’t see anyone. She decides she must have hallucinated because she’s anxious about the storm. When she looks outside again, she sees the shed door open and close. Someone knocks on the cabin door.
Chapter 6 Summary
The narrative continues in Casey’s present timeline. Casey’s only neighbor, Lee Traynor, is at the door. Lee checks in to ensure Casey is ready for the storm, inviting her to spend the night at his cabin if she’s feeling unsafe. Casey declines the request. Lee has been kind to her since she moved in, but she doesn’t trust him. She isn’t sure what to make of his offer to fix her roof either. He warns her about the phone lines and reminds her she can come over if she’s in trouble. Afterward, Casey can’t “shake the feeling that something terrible is going to happen” (29).
Chapter 7 Summary: “Before: Ella”
The narrative flashes back to Ella’s timeline. She returns home to find an aquarium filled with cooking supplies on the desk in her room. She confronts her mom Desiree about it. Desiree is lying on the couch in a pile of junk smoking cigarettes. She bought the fish tank and kitchenware at the thrift store for Ella. She accuses her of being ungrateful and berates her for wearing a shirt that’s too small. Their washing machine is broken, and she hasn’t been able to wash her clothes. She can’t access the clothes that fit her, either, as they’re buried in the messy basement. Ella can’t wait until she turns 18 and can leave home.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Now: Casey”
The narrative returns to Casey’s present timeline. While making herself dinner, Casey ruminates on her mistrust of Lee. She also tries to make sense of the face in the window. A call from Rudy interrupts her thoughts. He apologizes for being rude earlier and reveals that he’s booked her a hotel room in town. The line cuts out before she gets the address. Casey is worried about the roof and tree but decides it’s better to stay put than to go driving around in the storm.
Chapter 9 Summary
The narrative continues in Casey’s present timeline. Casey finishes up her dinner. Making pasta reminds her of her late father. Suddenly, she notices a light on in the toolshed. Realizing she can’t call the cops, she decides to investigate the shed herself.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Before: Ella”
The narrative flashes back to Ella’s timeline. Anton yells mean names at Ella in the lunchroom, telling her she smells bad. Ella fears he’s right. Her house is dirty, and it’s hard for her to find clean clothing. She sits by herself and tries to ignore her classmates, including Brittany, as they whisper about her. She wishes she had a nice life and family like Brittany. She doesn’t even know her father. Sometimes she fantasizes about going to find and live with him.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Now: Casey”
The narrative returns to Casey’s present timeline. Casey dons her boots and coat and grabs her gun from her dresser drawer. Outside, she pushes into the shed, calling out to the intruder. She notices a blanket on the ground with a small body underneath. Realizing it might be a child, she promises the figure she won’t hurt them. A young girl pulls the blanket away from her, a knife in hand.
Chapter 12 Summary
The narrative continues in Casey’s present timeline. Casey promises the girl she won’t hurt her. She guesses she is only 12 years old. She asks her name, but the girl doesn’t respond. Finally, when Casey offers her food and cookies, the girl perks up and agrees to come inside. She stands up, revealing her bloodstained clothes.
Chapter 13 Summary
Chapters 1-13 Analysis
The opening chapters of The Intruder establish the novel’s narrative parameters and structural rules, while introducing the novel’s primary characters, conflicts, stakes, and themes. The novel is written from the alternating first-person perspectives of Casey and Ella—presenting them as two individual characters whose lives inform one another. This formal choice creates narrative tension, particularly as Casey’s and Ella’s chapters are set in different temporal eras. After a suspenseful plot point in one of Casey’s chapters, for example, the author will relocate the narrative back in time to Ella’s narrative world; these structural and temporal movements create suspense and heighten the narrative mystery.
The intersection between Casey’s and Ella’s lives is also unexplained—a puzzle that similarly intensifies the narrative’s already suspenseful mood. When the young, nameless girl appears in Casey’s toolshed during the storm, the girl is strongly implied to be Ella. Figuring out who Casey and Ella are to each other, why Ella is covered in blood, what Casey did to warrant her “off the grid” lifestyle, and if the two characters will survive the storm are key stakes throughout these early chapters.
Casey’s and Ella’s alternating points of view introduce the novel’s theme of Navigating the Psychological Effects of Trauma. In Casey’s chapters, the narrative occasionally alludes to Casey’s late father and Casey’s life before moving to the cabin in the woods. These flashbacks imply that Casey has undergone trauma, loss, and hardship, which she is still reconciling with and healing from. She admits in Chapter 1 that she came “to this cabin in The Middle of Nowhere, New Hampshire,” in search of “peace and quiet,” but her new life is “so quiet that [she has] no distractions from thinking about the complete mess [she] made of [her] life” (2). Casey does not reveal what events constitute this “mess,” but her inability to mentally escape her past implies that she feels wounded and guilty. Her trauma has impacted how she sees herself and engages with life in the present.
The same is true for Ella, whose life at home with Desiree is defined by abuse. Her mother not only neglects Ella’s basic care but also actively disparages her emotionally and hurts her physically. Even when Ella is at school, she feels subjugated and alone. Her squalid home life causes her shame; she thus retreats from her social spheres in much the same way as Casey. Both Casey and Ella feel incapable of engaging with society. They live at a distance from others for fear that their traumatic circumstances and pasts will intensify their alienation.
The novel’s micro and macro settings scenically reinforce Casey’s and Ella’s psychological stress in both the narrative present and past. The Intruder capitalizes on psychological thriller tropes, most notably the cabin in the woods or isolated locale trope. Casey is not only living in the middle of the forest, but her cabin is in a state of disrepair as she faces an intense climatic event. “[T]he high winds,” leaking roof, and “the tree groan[ing] threateningly” out front add to the frightening narrative mood while underscoring Casey’s anxious state of mind (4-5). She wants to believe she will survive the storm and is safe in the woods alone, but her surroundings suggest otherwise. Allusions to the tree falling down, the shed door swinging off its hinges, or Casey dying also convey Casey’s fears and foreshadow danger in her future. In Ella’s sections, Ella’s filthy living conditions also create a threatening narrative mood. Like Casey, Ella is eager to escape her circumstances but decides to withstand her fear in the present; the danger she knows seems better than the danger she can’t predict.
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