Reply To: Still Life: Foreshadowing throughout the Gamache series

March 17, 2025 at 11:48 am #37944

Jane and Tara, you picked great examples, and it was hard to think of something else, but I came up with two things — One, that Vincent Gilbert and his book “Being” were mentioned, and will figure significantly in the storylines in the future. The other is that after Jean-Guy made his visit to Yolande’s dysfunctional house, he “left their home wanting to call his wife and tell her how much he loved her, and then tell her what he believed in, and his fears and hopes and disappointments. To talk about something real and meaningful. He dialed his cell phone and got her. But the words somehow got caught somewhere south of his throat. Instead he told her the weather had cleared, and she told him about the movie she’d rented. Then they both hung up.” And it continues, “Driving back to Three Pines, Beauvoir noticed an odor clinging to his clothes. Lemon Pledge.” I thought at the time that it was sad that he and his wife apparently couldn’t share deep communication, and I thought the Lemon Pledge comment was a statement about the sterility of their relationship, much as Yolande’s cold house reeked of that disinfectant and was somehow just a showcase upheld to impress others. I did wonder if that’s what JG’s marriage was like, too, and have since learned the answer to that! And perhaps that mention of lemon has significance as well. Lemon meringue pie has been a symbol of a touch of grace in many of the stories; perhaps Lemon Pledge showed a certain lack of it.

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