Beautiful Ugly

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes emotional abuse.

“My wife tells stories that matter, trying to save the world from itself. I tell stories that matter to me. My books have always been a place to hide myself inside myself when the real world gets too loud.”

Grady Green’s and Abby Goldman’s respective relationships with storytelling introduce the novel’s explorations of the Interplay Between Reality and Fiction. As a fiction writer, Grady prioritizes imaginary worlds over the real world. In contrast, Abby prioritizes the truth over fiction as an investigative journalist. Their respective tendencies play out in their approach to their marriage as well: Grady willfully loses himself in his fantasies, which keeps him from perceiving the truth of how he’s endangering Abby, while Abby seeks out the truth behind Grady’s motives to better understand her reality.

“My wife has been ‘missing’ for over a year but—according to the law—she cannot be presumed dead until seven years have passed. When other people lose a loved one there is a funeral or a service of some kind. But not for me. And not for Abby. The disappeared are not the same as the departed. People tell me I need to move on, but how can I? Without some form of closure I am trapped inside a sad and lonely limbo, desperate to know the truth but terrified of what it might be.”

Grady’s description of his grief initially casts him as a sympathetic character. As he rewrites what really happened to Abby, he convinces himself that he’s suffering. His first-person narration allows a deeper connection to the character, aiding in his desire to be the object of sympathy as he presents himself as the victim of tragedy rather than the perpetrator of violence.

“I have to stop doing this. I imagine seeing Abby everywhere. And I still think about her every day and every night; I don’t know how not to. I lie awake wondering if she is dead or whether she might be alive somewhere, living a life without me. If she is alive, I wonder where she is and if she misses me as much as I miss her. She is a wound that won’t heal.”

Grady’s inability to let go of Abby captures the complex nature of The Line Between Love and Obsession. His desperation to understand what happened to Abby appears like a manifestation of his love at the novel’s start. However, his inability to “heal” from the “wound” of Abby’s disappearance is a symptom of his guilt.