Look Closer

“As a wise woman once told me: The best lies are the ones closest to the truth.”

The novel uses several unreliable narrators, including Simon. His admission here that lies work best when they echo the truth is a technique he will use throughout the narrative. After finishing the novel and understanding Simon and Vicky’s plan, the reader is able to pick out which of his lies were actually true.

“Why do privileged old white men in black robes get to decide what it’s like to be an African American kid stopped on the street by a cop? Why do lawyers think that saying “inter alia” instead of “among other things” makes them sound smarter?”

In this passage, Simon reveals his frustration with both the elitism and the racial and class inequality inherent to the justice system. His desire for justice and his love of the law exist in tension with the illegal (and arguably immoral) actions he takes for revenge. This makes him a complicated character who is neither wholly good nor wholly evil.

“You were wearing a white sundress. Your skin was tanned. You were once again wearing those Audrey Hepburn sunglasses. Your hair was pulled up in back. You’d been laughing with friends, but I must have caught your peripheral vision and you turned, for some reason.”

The diary entries do not represent reality; instead, they constitute a trap Simon and Vicky use to ensnare Christian/Nick. In this section where Simon sees Lauren, he uses vivid descriptions to evoke the perfect, desirable woman when in fact he despises Lauren.

“We can do so much for them if they let us. They can stay with us for up to two weeks. We can get them counseling. We can find them a pro bono lawyer to get restraining orders and file divorce papers. We can find them alternative housing. But they have to say yes. They have to learn to fight for themselves.”

Just as Simon’s love for the law complicates his pursuit of revenge, Vicky’s job as an advocate for survivors of domestic violence reveals her desire for justice. Her job also highlights the necessity of personal agency and the limits of Vicky’s ability to help. Her clients must advocate for themselves before Vicky can truly help them.

“Corny, I know. But fuck it. Nobody else will read this journal. If I want to be corny, I will. Aren’t we all corny in our thoughts? Aren’t we corny with the ones we love? We’re just too afraid to say it to others for fear of embarrassment.”

In the fake diary, Simon asserts that no one will read the journal, which is ironic considering he and Vicky are writing it together for the express purpose of letting Christian/Nick read it. The corniness here is a tool to lure Christian/Nick into underestimating Simon, since Christian/Nick is incapable of any true feeling and believes that Simon’s feelings reveal his weakness.

“The later ones, after she married Ted Dobias, do not feature Ted at all, just Glory and Simon. Glory holding her swaddled newborn in the hospital bed, a beaming but exhausted mother.”

Ted Dobias’s absence from the family photos in Simon’s home foreshadows the novel’s revelations about his betrayal of Simon and Glory. This connects to the theme of appearance versus reality, since the Dobias family looked perfect from the outside when they were really dysfunctional.

“They say the law is a jealous mistress. But that’s not true. The law has an ironclad grip on Simon’s heart. I’m the jealous mistress.”

The unreliable narration gives this passage a layered meaning. On the surface, it is a comment about how Vicky supposedly feels unfulfilled in her distant marriage and thinks Simon loves his job more than her. In reality, it is a comment on Vicky’s status as someone who loves but will not marry Simon; she is permanently his mistress, and the law is his wife.

“The most important part of law school isn’t the ABCs but learning how to think, how to find those distinctions, how to advocate for your position, how to highlight your strengths and minimize your weaknesses. How to fight with passion and reason.”

This quote reveals Simon’s personality as a professor and his love for his legal career. It shows him to be a compassionate teacher, concerned with teaching his students to use logic and emotion to win their case. On a deeper level, it also shows Simon’s skills that he uses to set up the revenge plot.

“My clients were mostly married men with money who were looking for a thrill on the side. And cops. And when it wasn’t a direct trade, it was an indirect one. I learned how to make men do things for me. Expensive dinners that ended up in my bedroom or his, but for me it was about having two days of leftovers in the fridge.”

Vicky’s past experiences in sex work contribute to her idea that most relationships are transactional. She understands how to manipulate people, especially men, and uses these skills to manipulate Christian/Nick into killing Lauren.

“‘We are so unwilling to give up this notion that we control things and people around us that we’d rather feel guilt over the suicide than admit that we didn’t have that control in the first place.’ This advice, in my experience working with other survivors, is spot-on. It helps most people. Not me, but most people.”

Simon gives this advice to members of the Survivors of Suicide support group, but never truly believes it for himself. Instead, he devotes his life to attempting to control the world around him through finding revenge on Lauren for the destruction of his family.

“The day I found that bottle, the day I realized my father was never going to stop cheating—that was the day that Ted Dobias died. The night he was found with a knife in his stomach, floating in his pool, was just the moment he stopped breathing.”

Ted’s “death” here is the death of Simon’s love for his father and exemplifies his realization that the man he idolized did not really exist. This passage also foreshadows the fact that Simon committed the murder himself. Simon is capable of playing the long game and waits many years between the emotional death and the actual physical act.

“Connie can’t play to save his life, but he likes getting out there with his buddies and having a cigar and talking money. He likes the idea of playing golf.”

Conrad’s ex-wife comments on his obsession with appearances, which relates to one of the novel’s major themes. For Conrad, the “idea” of being a golfer, or the appearance of it, is more important than actually being a golfer.

“Funny how people care so much what you think of them, even if you’ve never met before and probably won’t ever cross paths again.”

Jane thinks this when she interviews Conrad’s ex-wife, and her insight connects to the novel’s theme of The Deceptive Nature of Appearances. Though Jane will probably never see this woman again, she is still concerned with how she appears to Jane. People prioritize appearances even when they are actually unimportant.

“At first, I was going to hide it, but Vicky needs to see a thing or two, small things, to show that some massively expensive, over-the-top item is merely chump change to me.”

In order to maintain his con, Christian/Nick must maintain the appearance of casual wealth. The titanium grooming set helps him to do this and appears to show that he is incredibly wealthy. In fact, it was a gift from a former mark and is something he carefully keeps because it is valuable.

“I mean, I try to be reasonable. But sometimes, I let things bother me more than they should.”

Simon is ostensibly talking about his encounter with the dean and Reid Southern, his academic rival. However, Simon’s elaborate revenge plot indicates that many things “bother” him and that his approach to dealing with this is far from what many people would consider to be “reasonable.”

“My wife. Not Lauren. Since he arrived at the house, he hasn’t uttered her name, just referred to her as a possession. How very male.”

Jane reflects on how Conrad doesn’t seem to view Lauren as a real person, but instead as an extension of himself. He is less concerned with her death than with how it affects him.

“I moved out on September eleventh. I remember that because it was 9/11. I remember thinking to myself, my marriage had crashed like the Twin Towers.”

Conrad compares the end of his third marriage to a terrorist attack that killed many people. This reveals his massive self-absorption and his inability to view others with compassion.

“Because I’ve let my life be controlled by what others have done, and my inexplicable need to settle the score, and okay, inside my own internal courtroom, I make the rules, I am judge, jury, and prosecutor, fine, but that’s my fucked-up internal world, not my job. Because what I love about the law is its purity, its honesty, its search for justice and fairness.”

Throughout the novel, Simon struggles to square his revenge quest with his love for the law. He recognizes that the two impulses are at odds and that his crimes are inherently opposed to the idea of justice and fairness. However, he is unable to let his impulse for revenge go and ultimately allows Vicky to blackmail Paul Southern, thus letting his career be corrupted as well.

“I nod, look into his eyes. ‘I don’t know what I’ll do if…’

…if I have to pretend to be in love with this self-worshipping jagoff for another second. But I let the words drift off.”

This passage humorously highlights the gap between Christian/Nick’s perception and the reality of Vicky’s feelings for him. Vicky is manipulating Christian/Nick and it is easier for her to do so because he is so arrogant and self-absorbed.

“But that’s what you do with the people you love. You trust them. You trust them until they prove you wrong. Until they betray you. And then, you react however you’re wired to react.”

Simon understands the vulnerability of love and infatuation, a vulnerability exploited by Lauren and Christian/Nick to get money. However, he attributes his own revenge to being “wired” a certain way rather than a choice.

“Let’s get to it. Carpenter versus United States, a case that best can be summarized as boy-is-it-scary-what-the-government-can-do-to-us.”

Simon’s area of legal expertise is government surveillance through technology. He uses this to his advantage in the revenge plot, but also genuinely believes that the government is abusing its power and must be stopped.

“Here’s the problem. It’s a lot easier to fool someone than to convince someone they’ve been fooled.”

Gavin, Christian/Nick, and other swindlers are susceptible to being fooled because they believe they are smarter than anyone else. Simon reflects that he has an easier time fooling Christian/Nick than convincing Gavin that the whole thing was a con.

“You mean the guy who forced me into rehab, who paid for the whole thing, and who was waiting for me when I came out? You mean the guy who convinced me to give life another shot? No, I’ve never met that man. Never heard of him.”

In this passage, Vicky expresses her love for Simon and lists his many good and redemptive qualities. Ironically, she does this because she knows that she will need to deny knowing him and that they cannot be together.