The Good Daughter

“This couldn’t be happening. Their mother couldn’t be dead. She was going to open her eyes. She was going to explain to them the workings of the cardiovascular system as she slowly put her body back together.”

The novel here emphasizes the shock and pain of Gamma’s death, setting up the significance to daughters of losing a mother which the narrative gradually unfolds as Sam and Charlie develop as characters. Sam’s youth and vulnerability if highlighted here: Her first instinct is denial, since the finality of death is unbearable. Sam cannot believe how her life has been upended in a moment, her intelligent, beautiful mother killed. Since Gamma is so capable, Sam briefly thinks she will return and fix her body alive.

“A person who has been up close when a gun is fired into another human being never mistakes the sound of a gunshot for something else.”

Slaughter uses extensive research on crime and trauma survivors to lend credence to the effects of violence on Sam and Charlie. When the school shooting begins, Charlie immediately recognizes the sound of bullets. Having witnessed the visceral brutality of a shooting up close, Charlie can never mistake the sound for fireworks or thunder, unlike many other people. This patterning forms part of the book’s treatment of trauma and how it can sometimes become a useful part of life’s experience.

“Nothing ever truly faded. Time only dulled the edges.”

Charlie’s observation highlights the novel’s key theme of the lingering effects of violence, grief, and trauma, examining how the memories of trauma and loss never go away; survivors just learn how to better deal with them. This passage is an example of the book’s emphasis on the survivor experience.

“The enclosed space, with its array of security lights and cameras, metal bars on the windows and twelve-foot-high razor-wired perimeter fence, looked like the staging area inside a SuperMax prison.”

The author often illustrates the theme of a punitive policing and justice system by juxtaposing the imposing, overwhelming structures and emblems of power against fraught, fragile individuals. Here, the description of the courthouse, with its scary, dehumanizing paraphernalia, is juxtaposed with the dazed, open-mouthed Ava Wilson, Kelly’s mother.

“That is called paralipsis, or from the Greek, apophasis…a rhetorical device by which you add emphasis to a subject by professing to say little or nothing about it…Also, a rhetorical relative of irony, whom I believe you went to school with.”

When Charlie tells Rusty she is not going to lecture him on his recklessness in continuing to smoke after his heart attacks, Rusty deflects that Charlie’s roundabout expression is an example of a literary device. Rusty’s description of the paralipsis shows his erudition, as well as his ease of banter with Charlie. The relationship between Charlie and Rusty adds levity to the somber mood of the novel thus far and shows that there is real love between them, despite their secrets and regrets.

“Rusty took risks at work that followed him home.”

Sam’s perspective on Rusty is dramatically different from that of Charlie. Having lost Gamma and having suffered life-altering injuries, Sam can see that the cost of Rusty’s work may have been too high for her family. Sam’s perspective is part of Slaughter’s complex presentation of the characters’ culpability and the competing responsibilities of professional, social, and family life.

“Charlie was spoiled. She was selfish…She had left Sam to die. She had run away then, just like she was going to run away now.”

This passage starkly demonstrates the effect of the 1989 attack on the sisters’ relationship and how it has divided them. Sam’s anger and resentment at her injuries cause her to say cruel things to Charlie, even though during the attack she protected her. Slaughter also employs dramatic irony here, as Sam does not know that Charlie was also violently attacked by Zach. This is an example of the suspenseful narrative arc of the sisters’ reconciliation.

“Their adult selves might very well be strangers, but there were certain things that age, no matter how cunning, could not wear away.”

Although Charlie has never told Sam about her rape, Sam can sense something is weighing down her sister. Sam’s awareness of Charlie’s burden illustrates the novel’s treatment of the deep bond between sisters. Sam’s sisterly barometer tells her Charlie is suffering and this will eventually help Charlie to confide in her sister.

“Last word.”

Slaughter creates details and habits to flesh out the relationship between the Quinns. Here, she creates a shared phrase. Sam, the older, bossy sister has always had the last word on Charlie. She repeats the phrase to Charlie after agreeing to represent Kelly during her arraignment. The phrase is shorthand for Charlie to stop questioning Sam’s decision and accept her authority. It causes both familiarity and annoyance in Charlie.

“Neither one of us will ever move forward if we are always looking back.”

After Charlie and Sam fell out, Sam wrote a letter of apology to Charlie. Charlie accepted the apology but told Sam she needed her space, as neither of the sisters would grow if stuck in the past, writing this sentence. This sentiment is at the heart of the book, which deals closely with the struggle of trauma and the process of dealing with pain and then moving on. Ironically, although Charlie says she wants to move on, she is the sister who has not fully dealt with her trauma, keeping it “locked inside.”

“A Pikeville version of Carrie without the pig’s blood…Well, someone’s blood was shed.”

Slaughter uses literary and pop culture references throughout the text to add depth and humor to the narrative. Here, Sam compares Kelly’s alleged violence after being bullied to Stephen King’s teenage protagonist Carrie using telekinesis to seek vengeance against the tormentors who doused her in pig’s blood. Since Carrie is a horror classic that explores the theme of bullying and isolation, the comparison emphasizes the horror of Kelly’s situation, encouraging the reader’s sympathy for her.

“Well, I heard people say he wasn’t a bad man, but I never got sent to the principal’s office.”

Kelly’s oddly phrased sentence has a sinister rhythm, setting up the knowledge of Doug Pinkerman’s abusive behavior, revealed toward the end of the novel. This oblique comment is a clue for the reader but is also a critique of how abusive behavior often hides in plain sight, suspected but not acknowledged within communities.

“Didn’t my big sister play Ken Coin like a fucking fiddle?”

Charlie’s gloating to Lenore about Sam’s performance in court highlights the theme of complex family dynamics. While Charlie and Sam have been getting on each other’s nerves since Sam’s return, Charlie is also extremely proud of her older sister. This scene is a step-change in the relationship between the sisters.

“Well, you were shot in the head, so I’m sure there’s a hole where your invective processing used to be.”

When Sam terms Charlie’s letter to her as an invective, Charlie makes the acerbic, ironic remark that Sam has no idea what an invective constitutes. The reference to Sam’s head injury shows the irreverent humor between the sisters and illustrates the gap in mutual understanding that coexists with their shared love.

“My body is useless! My brain is…gone! Everything I was supposed to be is gone…I get no comfort—ever. And I tell myself every day…that it doesn’t matter because you were able to get away.”

The narrative often presents Charlie and Sam as foils to each other, with the sisters possessing complementary qualities. With Sam, the idea of sisters completing each other takes on a poignant meaning in the context of her injuries. Despite her physical limitations and relentless pain, she can derive hope from the fact that Charlie is living Sam’s unrealized life. That is why Sam is so invested in the image of Charlie having a so-called full, “normal” life.

“What a rapist takes from a woman is her future. The person she is going to become, who she is supposed to be, is gone. In many ways, it’s worse than murder, because he has killed that potential person…yet she still lives and breathes.”

Rusty’s view of rape against women is informed by the trauma of Charlie’s sexual assault. While his statements are well-meaning and meant to highlight the impact of sexual violence, they are also problematic. Rusty’s assertion that rape is worse than murder is reductive and potentially insensitive to say to a rape survivor, likely to create fear and shame. Rusty’s approach is paternalistic; he lets his own external view of rape override his daughter’s personal experience and choices.

“To borrow from Churchill, it is a riddle wrapped in a canard.”

Rusty’s humorous statements often liven up the narrative. In this instance, he responds to Sam’s questions about Charlie’s life with a reference to Winston Churchill’s 1939 speech, in which the British Prime Minister referred to the political situation of his times as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. His misquotation is deliberate and speaks to the family’s shared erudition and sense of humor.

“There is value in forgetting him…I have forgotten him so that I can move on with my life.”

Rusty tells Sam that forgetting is important in order to survive and heal. Rusty has forgotten Zach so he can live; he suggests that Sam should do the same, instead of living in anger. However, he perhaps forgets that his experience is very different from Sam’s, as the direct victim of the attack. Rusty’s words mirror his approach to Charlie’s trauma.

“I am not here. I am not here. I am not here.”

Slaughter uses descriptions of physical and emotional trauma to capture the gravity of crimes. Here, Charlie dissociates from herself to be able to deal with Zach’s attack.

“I want you to take what that nasty man did to you, and I want you to put it in one of those boxes…then your daddy’s gonna get some tape, and we’re gonna tape up that box together…close up that box and tape it shut.”

These difficult lines show how Rusty went very wrong in dealing with Charlie’s sexual assault. He asks Charlie to visualize sealing up the memory of her assault in a box and taping it shut. The secrecy and silence implied through this action immediately turn the crime committed against Charlie into something she, the survivor, finds shameful. Boxing up her memories retraumatizes Charlie, denying her the outlet of expression.

“Our familiar impasse.”

Charlie refers to a phrase Rusty would often use to describe the gaps in their family’s communication and understanding, his version of their inability to make the blind pass. While Sam says she should have been present for Charlie all along, Charlie regrets inconveniencing Sam by calling her over. In this case, the familiar impasse is a mask for the immensity of Sam and Charlie’s love for each other.

“They had not found Rusty’s unicorn

They had found a black widow.”

The text sets up the conceit of the unicorn as a parallel to the unusual creature at the heart of the school shooting: The black widow. This is a reference to the spider species which practices sexual cannibalism, a behavior where the female spider eats her mate after sex. Here, it also refers to Judith, the woman who killed her husband, Doug.

“You never know how bad your marriage is until it’s over.”

Judith’s pithy, bleak observation suggests that she put up with an unbearable marriage for far too long. It was only when the marriage was over that she allowed herself to feel its toxicity. Her denial of Doug’s real impact on others enabled him to continue abusing his students, encapsulated by her treatment of Kelly when, instead, Judith should have alerted the authorities about her husband being the father of a student’s child.