42 pages • 1 hour read
Gilly MacmillanWhat She Knew
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Prologue-Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Before: Day 1”
Rachel begins by describing events that occurred before her son went missing. She thinks about her ex-husband, John Finch. He is a pediatrician who began an affair with a nutritionist name Katrina. “Katrina lured John away from us just ten months before Ben disappeared. I thought of it as a master plan that she executed: The Seduction and Theft of My Husband” (18).
Rachel admits that she perceived her marriage differently than John. She thought they would work through any conflicts over time. Instead, John let things simmer below the surface. That Christmas, he gave Rachel an iPad and Ben a puppy before walking out for good on Boxing Day.
In the months that follow, Rachel struggles with being both a mother and father to her eight-year-old son. She analyzes her actions on the day Ben disappeared and wonders what she should have done differently. It was autumn as she drove with her son and their dog, Skittle, to Leigh Woods on the other side of Bristol. Rachel is a photographer and wants to capture the beautiful fall foliage on film.
Ben asks if he can run ahead and play on the rope swing. Rachel is torn between refusal and permission. As a mother, she wants to protect her son every moment. Playing the role of a father, she wants her son to develop independence. She agrees to let Ben and Skittle run ahead. Several minutes later, when Rachel reaches the rope swing, Ben and the dog are missing. A woman and another dog come across Rachel, who is in a panic. They organize a search and call the police. John arrives and reproaches Rachel for letting Ben go off alone. Someone finds Skittle with a broken leg, but Ben has vanished.
The narrative shifts to a transcript of a session between Jim and his psychologist, recorded from Manelli’s point of view. Jim is uncooperative. He doesn’t want to talk about the panic attacks or bouts of uncontrolled weeping that have plagued him since the Finch case. Manelli asks about his background. Jim is the son of a detective and feels the calling is in his blood. Manelli then asks about Jim’s insomnia. He clearly doesn’t want to talk about the problem. When she probes deeper and asks what he thinks about as he tries to fall asleep, Jim lies and says he can’t remember.
Prologue-Chapter 1 Analysis
The first segment of What She Knew introduces the two narrators of the story—Rachel and Jim. It also sets up the structure for the rest of the novel. Each chapter consists of a single day of the nine-day investigation. Both Rachel and Jim discuss the events of that day from their own perspective. The story proceeds in a patchwork fashion with passages of narration by Rachel interrupted by passages from Jim. Segments from each narrator alternate in any given chapter, and passages from outside documentation sources sometimes interrupt both narratives.
The Prologue is unique in that it takes place one year after the investigation ends. Rachel’s narrative concerns itself with events leading up to the disappearance. Jim’s narrative covers the aftermath and its personal effect on him. Jim also introduces textual documentation from the notes of his psychologist, Dr. Manelli.
The Prologue and first chapter of the book emphasize the theme of self-doubt. Both narrators are obsessed with the subject. Rachel begins by examining her behavior during a disastrous press conference. The media captures her as an unstable, crazed woman who might be responsible for her son’s disappearance. Rachel blames herself for not presenting a more respectable appearance. She feels she has hurt her son’s case by showing her real emotions rather than reading from a script.
Rachel also feels she may be deficient as a parent. After her husband left ten months earlier, Rachel has been forced to be both a mother and father to Ben and thinks she isn’t very effective in either role. She questions why she didn’t have enough maternal instinct to sense that her son might be in danger on the day he disappeared. Rachel is tempted to believe that the media’s perception of her might be right. She’s a bad mother.
Jim suffers from as much self-doubt as Rachel but refuses to admit this to himself. While Rachel is open enough to examine her own negative feelings about herself, Jim isn’t. Instead, Jim’s self-doubt manifests itself in the physical symptoms of insomnia, panic attacks, and uncontrolled bouts of weeping. The reader only comes to understand Jim’s true state of mind through his sessions with his psychologist. Manelli’s notes are helpful in gauging Jim’s insecurity because he never consciously acknowledges his sense of inadequacy at this stage in his therapy.
