The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie

The novella incorporates numerous ridiculous details that form a motif of the absurd. This motif helps create the story’s humorous tone and establishes it as a parody. Many details of the story are comical hyperbole: Willie is not just seductive in his manner, he actually cleans the house shirtless; Poppy brings not one casserole but five; Marnie does not just have several children with “Grant,” she has eight, and Alice is initially so overwhelmed by the many children that she struggles to count them; the labels that Alice misreads on the lice shampoo, the prenatal vitamins, and the COVID test contain not just accurate product descriptions but large lettering and graphic illustrations demonstrating their intended uses, making her obliviousness absurd.

Other details in the narrative are allusions to internet culture that appear comically trivial in the serious context of a thriller: the cat on the Roomba, the blue-and-black dress, and criticism of Nickelback are all topics that have preoccupied particular corners of online culture at one time or another. The cat on the Roomba, juxtaposed with the tense plot