Ending

[W.T.]

I read somewhere that book clubs would be sure to furiously debate the ending. I think it'd be a short debate. Was there any question for you about what the ending was or meant?

[Maura]

I'm so glad you asked this, because I would LOVE to discuss the ending, and apart form dragging someone in off the street and forcing them to read the book, I didn't think I'd get a chance ... !!

My "serious" interpretation is that it leaves us with "Schrödinger's Wallace": frozen, for all eternity, neither alive nor dead. Just frozen, in that moment of time. (Which, to be "deep" for a moment, is pretty well a definition of life: who knows what the next moment might bring?)

My less serious interpretation is that it offers an out, for anyone who loved Wallace as a character, and would hate to have to confront the certainty of him (and Jilly and Morgan) becoming three more victims of the Forgetful Bay jinx. That plane is going to pull up at the last minute. It is. It is. It is ...