Nine Perfect Strangers

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-16

Chapters 17-32

Chapters 33-48

Chapters 49-64

Chapters 65-79

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Tranquillum House

Nine Perfect Strangers is set predominantly in Tranquillum House, an exclusive and expensive health spa located several hours outside the Australian city of Sydney. The spa is less famous and more notorious: Online reviews switch between reverential praise and abhorred criticism. The spa’s reputation divides people: Some feel healed by the house, and some feel broken. As such, the reputation of Tranquillum House symbolizes the lack of a universal treatment and the myriad different pains that humans feel. Masha wants to create a treatment regime that will heal all her guests, but the reality is that the guests have so many different problems and these problems are so infinitely complex that she’s pursuing an impossible dream. The spa’s divisive reputation symbolizes Masha’s divisive approach to healing.

The physical building symbolizes the uniqueness of Masha’s approach. Tranquillum House is isolated and difficult to find. The guests must travel many hours, often along dirt tracks, to reach the spa. Once there, they must enter through the tight security that separates the house from the rest of the world. The spa’s physical isolation is heavy with foreboding and represents the emotional isolation of the guests and the staff. Everyone in the building—from the guests to Yao to Masha—is in some way disconnected from the world. The irony is that these alienated people are brought together by visiting an isolated location. However, their emotional remoteness is a problem, as they feel detached from everyday life. To solve this problem, they must travel to a remote location. The isolation and remoteness of Tranquillum House is an important symbol for the distance between the characters and the society they inhabit. Their isolation in an isolated place brings them together.

The history of the house is also filled with symbolic value. When Yao gives Frances a tour of the building, he explains that the original owner built the house using convict labor more than a century before the current owners arrived. This history of the house symbolizes the emotional imprisonment and lack of consent that become important themes in the novel. The convicts were imprisoned and sent to Australia as a punishment for unspecified crimes. The guests at the spa are imprisoned by their past and their negative emotions, so they feel compelled to visit the spa to atone for their sins. Once in Tranquillum House, they assume the symbolic role of the prisoners. They’re trapped by Masha, who becomes the architect of their treatment. Just as Tranquillum House is built upon the complicated and negative memories of the past, the guests’ psychological profiles are built upon negative emotions and memories. They’re buried below, repressed and ignored. The history of Tranquillum House symbolizes the way in which the characters present a false version of themselves to the world: they pretend to be happy and well, while hiding the complicated miseries of their past.

Ben’s Sportscar

Ben drives a bright yellow Lamborghini sportscar. After winning the lottery, the car is one of the few indulgences that brings joy to his life. Ben worked as a car mechanic before becoming rich, so the car provides a link between his current life and his old life. The car is one of the objects that he coveted before and that the money has made a reality. As a modest man with very few overarching ambitions, Ben doesn’t know what to do with all his lottery winnings. He wants a simple life, and he wants to use his money to make his friends and family happy. However, the car symbolizes the one way in which Ben has achieved something that he couldn’t have achieved before. In this respect, the bright yellow car represents the sum of Ben’s modest ambitions. He was a mechanic who spent all day coveting an expensive car. Once he became rich, he could satisfy that craving. Now, Ben has done everything he wants with his money. The only thing that makes him happy is the car, illustrating the hard limits of psychological happiness that can be achieved through financial means. The car is a symbol of the hollowness of wealth. By achieving a lifelong dream, Ben shows himself how little he cares about anything else.

The sportscar also creates a symbolic contrast between the empty, isolated world around Tranquillum House and the guests. Ben worries that the road to Tranquillum House will destroy his car. He frets and worries, more concerned with the car’s paintwork than the destination. To Ben, the wellbeing of the car is more important than the wellbeing of his marriage. The car stands out in the spa’s location, and many guests comment on it. The car’s bright yellow paintwork and audacious shape contrast with the seemingly peaceful and tranquil spa. However, both function as symbols of consumerism. The spa treatment and the Lamborghini are both lavish indulgences that cost far more than the average person could afford. While the car stands out in the spa’s remote location, the symbolism of the car and Tranquillum House are the same: These are expensive, luxurious things available only to the most privileged people.

The car has a different symbolic meaning for Jessica. While Ben loves his car, his wife resents it. She envies the car, believing that it represents the decline of her marriage. She believes that Ben cares more about his sportscar than he cares about his wife; her jealousy becomes so intense that she takes a key and carves a large scratch down the side of the vehicle. Ben and Jessica’s contrasting emotional relationship with the vehicle symbolizes the vast divide between husband and wife, while Jessica’s secret attack on the car reveals their inability to communicate. The car’s different symbolic meanings illustrate the complexity of the characters’ lives. What makes one character happy only makes another miserable. The nuanced symbolism of Ben’s sportscar becomes a comment on the treatment offered at the spa, showing the inherent limitations of Masha’s desire to treat everybody in the same way.

Literature

Literature plays a key role in Frances’s life. As a writer, she views the world in literary terms, and her life is often interpreted as a series of literary events that follow traditional romantic narratives. However, the novel introduces her at a time when her literary career is beginning to falter. Her latest novel has been rejected, and a recent review has described Frances’s work as out-of-date, cliched, and unsuitable for the modern age. In this respect, Frances’s literary reputation becomes a symbol of her own self-loathing. She checks into the spa because she feels a need to repair something that’s broken inside of her. While she tells people that she needs to rest and recover, she’s aware of a more fundamental disconnect from the world that prompts her to seek treatment. Until she read the review, Frances was uncertain about the nature of this disconnect. Afterward, she feels the same way about herself as the reviewer felt about her work. Her reputation as a writer and the work she produces come to symbolize the difficulties she’s facing. She feels out-of-date and past her best. As she struggles to deal with the changes to her body brought about by the menopause and with falling for an online scam, she feels disconnected from the youthful society around her. Frances’s writing symbolizes her deeper personal issues.

However, Frances never abandons her love of literature. She references literary devices throughout her time in the spa, and these references are often casually ironic inclusions in the novel, such as Frances describing herself as a protagonist. These literary allusions symbolize the romantic view of the world that she can’t truly give up. Even if Frances is criticized as an outdated writer, she clings to her view of the world. She remains the protagonist and—like a character in one of her novels—she’s revitalized when she discovers a romantic interest. Frances and Tony find happiness together, just as might happen in one of Frances’s books. She fully embodies the role of the protagonist in the romance novel, and her she expresses her happiness in literary terms. She gets the cliched “happy ending,” culminating in a marriage and a successful novel that’s updated for modern expectations. Frances uses literature to relate to the world, whether she’s describing other people, thinking about herself, or planning her future. Her appreciation of literature symbolizes people’s different perspectives. Literature is the lens through which Frances views the world. While the world might change and literature might evolve, her ability to grow and adjust is a symbolic demonstration of humanity’s ability to heal.