60 pages 2 hours read

Mary Kubica

The Other Mrs.

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020

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Essay Topics

1.

One of the literary devices commonly used in mysteries and thrillers is the red herring, in which the reader is fed false or misleading clues. An example of this is Sadie’s focus on Imogen’s strange and disturbing behavior. Identify and discuss examples of red herrings and how they affect Sadie’s investigation, as well as your own understanding of the secret at the heart of the novel. Are the red herrings successful?

2.

While relatively rare in real life, dissociative identity disorder (DID) has been found by fiction and cinema to be a useful plot device, especially in telling detective stories or thrillers. Unfortunately, literary and cinematic uses of DID (formerly called split or multiple personalities) often use stigmatizing stereotypes about the disorder. Is Kubica’s book a responsible portrayal of DID? How does it succeed, and how does it fall short?

3.

Why is Mouse’s narrative told in the third person while the other three narratives (Sadie’s, Camille’s, and Will’s) are told in the first person? How does this affect the way you relate to Mouse compared to the other characters who tell their story in their own voice? How does the narrative