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What burning questions, observations, or comments do you want to share?
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Well, I listened to this book, so I had to listen to the beginnings of the first 14 chapters of course! It would’ve been much easier to flip pages, but I was pleased to hear “If you are reading this I am trapped on the island please help me”. Very clever!!!
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Great catch, Katherine. When I was reading the book I was strongly reminded of The Prisoner, the British cult TV series… A man imprisoned in a mysterious coastal village unable to escape. Did anyone else have this show or another reference come to mind when reading the book?
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Tara I am not familiar with the show you mentioned but in the States when I was a kid (back in the dark ages) we had a weekly TV show called the Twilight Zone. Every time Grady was in the village I kept hearing the theme music from that show. It was just so weird there was never anyone on the streets, no one in the stores except Grady and the owners. And he was the only man on the island.
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The Prisoner was a show from the 1960s too and definitely had the same atmosphere as the Twilight Zone. I also thought the empty streets of Amberly were odd and unnerving. There was another 60’s TV series called the Avengers that had an episode where a quaint English village was the setting where industrial CEOs were getting murdered in broad daylight. They would come to the town and get killed in some peculiar way and then disappear. All the villagers were in on a “murder-for-hire” scheme and got paid for doing away with them so of course there were never any witnesses. The villagers locked away any other villagers that protested the scheme. So it too reminded me of Amberly. I think there’s just something about remote British villages that make them the perfect settings for murder mysteries. I really enjoyed the setting in this book.
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I remember the Avengers as well. Thanks for reminding me of it. And, I agree about these quaint villages which is one of the reasons I enjoy Tana French’s stories so much. Every once in awhile I get that “Doo Dee Doo Doo” feeling about Three Pines!
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Haha Libby, I’m with you on Tana French and the “Doo Dee Doo Doo”!!!
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Good image of the Twilight Zone which I also loved. I thought the story of the birds being killed because of harming the redwoods and not coming back was “twilight worthy.”
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Tara, it brought to mind, some of Edgar Allen Poe’s stories.
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I’m not sure how Grady is held responsible for Sandy’s “death”. The end of “Dull Roar”, Sandy is sharing her story with Grady, and in the next, he is driving away. I’m also not clear on why Kitty would send letters to Grady to warn him while he is on the island. And of course, the logistics of the phone call while Abby is driving home in the first chapter seems a little strange. I’d love to hear anyone else’s thoughts on these points. Thanks!
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I agree with Libby; that initial phone call was sketchy! Did he receive the call with the good news at home and then rush out afterwards? Was he on the road when he received the news? Was he already on the road with his first call to Abby to see where she was? Did he think receiving a call with news would be a good alibi? Oh Grady, what were you thinking. But then, I guess we could see that he was a little delusional. I had initially been suspecting that the women on the island were drugging him and causing him to have all those strange thoughts and sightings.
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I think he drove away and left Sandy because if she got caught in the incoming tide, then no one, in his mind, would be able to tell that he stole Charles’ manuscript and passed it as his own. Plus he never told anyone that he had seen her there. With Kitty warning him while he was on the island, he felt that he had someone on his side. As far as the phone call on Abby’s way home, Grady knew her route and I think he was already on the spot on the road, waiting. With a cell phone, he did not have to be at home in order to get his agent’s call.
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I felt like Grady was set up by Sandy and probably the entire women’s group so they could black mail him to keep him on the island. He seemed pretty convinced himself that it was his fault she “died” because he left her in the cave, drunk, mourning the loss of her daughter, and the tide was coming in. He admonished himself as he drove away and then when he heard she was dead he figured it was his fault.
I suppose Kitty’s letters were another means of keeping him captive on the island because they needed a writer to support them financially. I think the longer he went without hearing from Kitty the harder he’d try to get to the mainland. Once he did that they’d never get him back.
I agree the initial phone call was very sketchy!!-
Thanks Libby, that’s helpful. Those were the biggest head-scratchers for me. I just kept wondering if I’d missed something where he’d actually murdered Sandy because she didn’t seem so drunk that she couldn’t just walk out of the cave after he had. In the middle, I started to feel as though the unreliable narrator bit was going to go all the way unreliable with the “it’s all a dream”, which would’ve been very disappointing, so I’m so glad it didn’t turn out that way. I was also surprised and happy about how AF tied in current issues with the island being all women. Thanks again Libby; appreciate hearing your thoughts!
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Of all the things that were far-fetched in the story, the women all relying on the royalties of a writer seemed most implausible to me. I suppose Charles was already a successful best-selling writer, so money was rolling in and Grady was on the cusp of success, but really, Kitty must be an extraordinarily successful agent to be able to get enough in contracts to support them all!
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I wondered why it was always a male author they tried to get on the island. Since they were developing an island of the women and for the women why not women authors. I also wondered how they thought they would keep it populated since there was only one baby on the island.
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I wonder if they only lured male writers so they could do away with them if needed? What if the woman author they recruited was only mediocre? Then they’d have another island “expense” with no viable income. It seems like they targeted men who were somewhat expendable. With respect to the island population, it could be that there would always be more women needing just that kind of place to escape from past traumas. And there always IVF!
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Good points Katherine. Thanks for the thoughts – makes sense to me.
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Good point Libby. Why get a male author after Charles proved so difficult? Far easier to find a sympathetic female writer. Maybe they wanted to help Abby with her revenge on Grady and for Grady to finish the book and now they will turn to that easier solution. As for populating the island, I wondered this too but agree with Katherine there will always be women looking for a sanctuary and there is IVF. But what would they do if they had a boy baby? I tried not to overthink it too much. I envisioned that they would eventually let men back in, but with women firmly in charge.
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Tara I love your theory about getting even with Grady on behalf of Abby. If they ended up with a baby boy they would be better able to nurture him in their belief system. Maybe the beginnings of a new type of male. One conditioned to accept women as an equal. Oh the possibilities are endless! Have a great weekend.
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I agree. I wondered how much Grady provided because it seems he only wrote one bestseller Beautiful Ugly before he was buried alive
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I wonder why “You are not here” is written on the map. Did I miss the explanation for that?
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Lee I do not remember an explanation for that. I saw it on the map and just figured it was part of the island mystic. That Twilight Zone vibe. Great question though. Maybe someone else will come up with an explanation.
Have a great weekend.-
Yes, very foreboding indeed! And very “Doo Dee Doo Doo”. Thanks again Libby and have a great weekend yourself!
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