Thoughts on Adam (for those who have read this book -- otherwise SPOILER)

[Lori]

So, how do you feel about Adam? Have you drawn any conclusions about his role in the 1984 disappearances? Were you as chilled as I was by this character? Killer? Sociopath? Just arrogant? And how much of his narrative were you able to take at face value by the end of the book? Did your feelings about this character change as much as mine did as you read to the end?

The author was skillful in setting up more than one plausible outcome/resolution for this tale...at the whim of the reader. I certainly am on board with the interpretation of Adam-as-guilty.

[Annie]

Generally, speaking when I read a book I start to like the character, right off the bat, they might not be someone who I'd hang out with in real life but I nearly always have an instant-liking. I don't know why but that's what happens.

But with Adam's character...it took me a few chapters to like him and think he's just saying that to be silly.

So then I settled down and started liking him, and then like 200 or 300 pages in, he sleeps with Cassie and just can't get over it! WTF, man! She's your best friend and you're just going to ignore her? Still angry with him about that. I mean if you want to sleep with someone find someone else who is like-minded not your BEST FRIEND!

In short, I think Adam is deeply "fucked up" or traumatized from the events that occured in 1984, and hasn't been able to develop further as a person because of it. It is quite plausible that he murdered them and deeply repressed it, to keep from losing his mind, self-defense mechanism and all that. Or, he could be the victim, the murderer could've been more occupied with Peter and Jamie and Adam could have found that moment to run as fast as he could as far as he could. Or both could be wrong and there's a third option: that he somehow aided this not on purpose but enough to make him feel like he helped his friend's murders.

I'm not sure as yet to commit myself to either side of the argument at the moment. But I do think the things I listed above, and others I can't think of at this moment, all in the same file in my brain called : "Possible/Plausible."

[Elizabeth R]

Hmm, I don't see him as the guilty party in the 1984 disappearance, though I suppose he could be--but why, then, should he be traumatized by this case at all? Survivor's guilt is a massive burden on someone, whether he escaped or was discarded. In all the interviews I've read and listened to, she basically says he is deeply messed up, his mind "cracked straight across", so I don't think her intention was to write him as the guilty party. However, many an author has noted that they just write the story, and it's up to the reader to interpret it however they see fit. To be fair, I deeply adore this book as a whole and every character (except Damien, yech) in it, and I thought the comment by Tana French's editor was spot-on: Rob's the kind of guy you know you shouldn't get involved with, you know he's messed up, but you kind of want to do it anyway. Haven't we all known that guy?
I found him a magnetic character as he started fraying at the edges and showing his unguarded side, more so than at the beginning, when he was just kind of arrogant and flippant. I thought Rob and Cassie's relationship was written beautifully and perfectly for what it was, one of those rare and wonderful platonic friendships as emotionally deep as a sexual relationship, and the love scene was perhaps the most beautiful moment in the book: Rob is stripped to the core, emotionally, and it allows him to really engage with Cassie in a way that he hasn't been able to allow or create up till then, which leads into...well, you know. ;) Of course, he proceeds to wreck it all when he's in his more usual state of mind, but that moment ("that one night; there was that one time") is perhaps the best in the book. I truly appreciated her writing the emotional before and after, and completely bypassing the physical part of it--as it was a primarily emotional event anyway.
I know he's supposed to be an unreliable narrator, but I've gone on to read "The Likeness", and Cassie IS a reliable narrator, and her limited comments on the events past tally more or less with Rob's, so I trust his account. Especially as, at the end, he notes that in portraying events just as he saw them at the time, he lied about people's motives etc--but ultimately, he told the truth.
Gawd, I love this book and these characters.

[Matt]

Excellent summation, Elizabeth!

[Elizabeth R]

thanks!

[Matt]

I actually think there's a scene in The Likeness that is equivalent to the love scene in In the Woods -- which I agree, Rob's comment "there was that one night; there was that one time" is one of the best in the book.

In The Likeness, Frank tells Cassie she has three days before he pulls the plug on the investigation; she think she should call Sam but can't reach him, so she calls Rob instead. This is where he answers but she hangs up on him. Cassie tells the reader about the night from In the Woods where she picked up Rob at the crime scene and drove him back to her apartment on her Vespa (this is what leads to the love scene in In the Woods). Cassie says there was a truck driving in the opposite direction and she easily veers off to avoid it without thinking. Cassie tells the reader she didn't realize at the time but she wished she could've driven herself and Rob up over the hills into the light "where no one could touch us, ever." To me, that's one of the most revealing and powerful comments Cassie makes about her relationship with Rob.

[Elizabeth R]

Ah, yes, that is a good scene and quite a revealing comment, as you say. Cassie seems like she is trying to play down her relationship with Rob most of the time, and not look at that as what really messed her up--and then there is that comment. I always wondered what the fallout was from her not being completely honest with Sam when he asks, too. She's just a plain good writer, there's great moments in each book!

[Matt]

On the topic of Rob having killed Peter and Jamie:

I just don't see it. It was the initial suspicion of one of the early detectives in that case, but still, his best friends? And on the day Jamie learns she's leaving and they all decide to run away? I could definitely see one of the older boys doing it? Starting out as taunting; gets carried away and something goes bad. Maybe a response to them witnessing the rape?

To me Rob's comment on him craving truth and also lying is more about how much of a broken person he is. Broken from everything he could to stop, or could t remember, to save his friends, and then being so easily manipulated by Rosalind.