61 pages • 2-hour read
The Note
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Symbols & Motifs
Notes
Given that the novel’s conflicts cascade into motion after Kelsey’s fateful decision to place a prank note on David Smith’s car, suggesting that he is cheating on his current love interest, Alafair Burke uses this scenario to explore the ramifications of anonymous notes. The narrative ultimately shows that although the intentions behind such notes may be relatively harmless, they can lead to unintended consequences, as when Kelsey leaves David and his date a note that reads, “He’s cheating.” She does not tell her friends that she is leaving this note, and she later tries to minimize her actions by maintaining that it was intended as a prank. Her true intention is to drive a wedge between David and his date, and while this measure is successful, Kelsey feels tremendous guilt upon learning of David’s death, fearing that she incited his girlfriend to kill him. (Ultimately, Kelsey’s note does not actually do much harm, since Nate would have killed David anyway.)
The motif of incriminating notes reappears when the narrative later reveals that May anonymously alerted Wildwood administrators to Lauren’s affair with Thomas. At the time, May believed that this was a well-intentioned way of preventing Lauren from being taken advantage by an older man. The information provided in May’s note ultimately made it easier for the camp administrators to label Lauren as the scapegoat for Marnie’s death. Although the consequences of May’s action were unforeseen, she nonetheless bears much of the responsibility for the consequences that befell her friend as a result.
Surveillance
The motif of surveillance appears repeatedly, reinforcing the author’s suggestion that privacy invasion, public scrutiny, and the fragility of personal reputations in the digital age all have the potential to complicate relationships. May, Lauren, and Kelsey have been bonded in adulthood by their individual experiences with scandals that led to a complete invasion of their personal lives. For May, the success of an op-ed was overturned by the subsequent release of a viral video that made her seem racist, paranoid, and hypocritical. The limited perspective of the video distorts the narrative, inviting the worst possible interpretation of May’s behavior. Similarly, although Kelsey was devastated by the death of her husband, the scrutiny of keyboard detectives forced her to abandon her online life and wear a disguise in public. Finally, although Lauren legitimately earned her position as head of the Houston Symphony, her boyfriend’s wife wrote a malicious letter describing the affair and tarnishing Lauren’s reputation. Thus, each woman has experienced scathing judgements by friends and strangers, and these traumatic experiences compromise the friends’ personal and professional identities.
In this light, Kelsey’s reckless choice to leave the note on David’s car catalyzes a rapid devolution into the consequences of seemingly trivial actions in a world where privacy is increasingly hard to find. Likewise, the fight between Kelsey and David (and Kelsey’s description of this fight when talking to Nate) ultimately leads to David’s death. By playing what she hopes will be a simple prank on a former lover, Kelsey unknowingly opens a Pandora’s Box of scrutiny, reopening the trauma of her husband’s death and testing her friends’ loyalty and faith in her innocence.
Family
Throughout the novel, Burke explores different types of families, challenging conventional versions of family dynamics in a wide range of ways. This pattern appears most often in the various descriptions of the three women’s friend group as a “found family.” Bonded by their deep connection, Lauren, May, and Kelsey maintain a friendship that proves to be more meaningful than the relationships they share with their biological family members and chosen partners. The shared history and mutual support system provides significant emotional connection, even if May and Kelsey did not fully appreciate this fact until they lost touch. By the end of the novel, each woman recognizes that her friends provide an emotional need that her romantic partner cannot satisfy.
Additional family-related considerations emerge in the context of Kelsey’s fertility struggles, which highlight the difficulty of having children in a heteropatriarchal system. In preparation for the surgery that she hoped would prevent her from developing the same type of ovarian cancer that killed her mother, Kelsey froze her eggs, which were then fertilized by her husband Luke. May has extensively researched Massachusetts’ laws surrounding fertility, which dictate that in the event of a divorce, Kelsey would have to obtain Luke’s permission to use the eggs; his death freed her from this obligation. Thus, Kelsey’s desire to become a mother and create the family structure that she craved as a child is a central factor in Nate’s decision to murder Luke, for he believed that he was helping make Kelsey’s dream a reality.
However, the novel’s most unconventional view of family can be found in the unique relationship that Kelsey has with Nate. As stepsiblings, the two experimented sexually when they were teenagers, engaging in a quasi-incestuous relationship despite the taboo against such activity. Their parents found the stepsiblings’ relationship to be so deeply problematic that this issue precipitated the divorce between Bill and Jeanie. Although Kelsey backed away from the relationship, Nate did not believe it to be problematic because the two are not biologically related. Thus, Burke deliberately invokes many different approaches to and definitions of the concept of family, further complicating a narrative that is already focused on the issues involved in redefining personal identity amidst the interwoven relationships with friends and loved ones.
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