Case Histories: A Novel

Echoing the novel’s beginning, the closing chapters return to the “case history” format, revisiting each of the cold cases. These chapters reveal the truth about the cases, exposing the misdirection and red herrings that obfuscated what truly happened. Readers discover that Michelle is innocent, that Laura knew her killer, and that Sylvia accidentally killed Olivia. However, these closing chapters also return to the idea about how novels are different from reality, as expressed through Michelle’s statement that “[n]ovels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and they implied there were endings when in reality there were no endings, everything just went on and on and on” (66). Through this statement, Atkinson stresses that while readers of the novel Case Histories are privy to the information in the final chapters and get to see each of the mysteries through to a satisfying conclusion, the characters within the novel—including Jackson—do not necessarily have the same experience. For example, the only people who know what happened to Olivia are Sylvia, Jackson, and Amelia. Julia remains in the dark. Additionally, as far as Jackson is concerned, Tanya remains lost, though she is actually Lily-Rose. This narrative technique allows Atkinson to satisfy readers’ curiosity while maintaining the realistic ending that mimics the enduring chaos of many real-life mysteries.

The final chapters also highlight the theme of The Quest for Justice and Closure. While some of the characters receive closure, none of the cases find justice through the police and the judicial system. Instead, Jackson gives the information about the mysteries to Amelia and Theo, allowing them to choose how they want to proceed. Both Amelia and Theo choose to move on with their lives rather than obsessing with the events of the past, and for both of them, this rebirth is connected to the motif of flowers. The postcard Jackson sends Theo with the identity of Laura’s killer is decorated with “one of the artificial-looking pink daisies that [Jackson had] passed over for Niamh’s grave” (373). When Jackson later visits Theo, he sees “the postcard with the picture of the pink flower propped up on the mantelpiece” (383). Though the information is there, Theo has chosen to ignore it in favor of focusing on a different kind of “flower”: Lily-Rose. She tells Theo that she “had given herself a new name so she could be a new person” (396). The flowers in her name represent renewal and rebirth, and Theo symbolically rejects the fake flower on the postcard (and his old life of grief) in favor of helping Lily-Rose pursue her new life.

Amelia also associates her future with flowers. She imagines Binky’s garden filled with roses: “Duchesse d’Angoulême and Félicité Parmentier, Eglantines and Gertrude Jekylls, the pale rosettes of the Boule de Neige and the fragrant peachy Perdita, for their own lost girl” (416). The romantic and vivid names of the roses conjure up a kind of pastoral heaven. For Amelia, this garden will be a place where she can mourn Olivia and celebrate her life. Several times in the novel, characters mention that the overgrown wall with the hidden gate into the garden reminds them of the early-20th-century novel The Secret Garden. Amelia’s planned garden evokes this childhood classic. It will also be a literal secret garden, since she is the only one beside Jackson who knows the secret of Olivia’s death. Roses are also traditionally associated with romance, and Amelia also embarks on a newfound discovery of her sexuality. Her relationship with Jean reveals that she is capable of passion and is deserving of affection. Through her new friends, she is living the life she imagined for herself long ago and has become finally become the “interesting” person she always dreamed of being.

The novel’s ending not only wraps up the mysteries but also provides a transition for Jackson. He began the book as a divorced and struggling private investigator, and he is now a wealthy retired man, embarking on a tentative romance with Julia. The final paragraphs take place in France, where Jackson has always longed to live. As he sits in a café with Julia and Amelia, he wonders if he is in love with Julia when it begins to rain: “[T]hunder growled in the distance, and the first drops of heavy rain thudded onto the café’s canvas awning and Julia shrugged […] at Jackson and said, ‘C’est la vie, Mr. Brodie, c’est la vie’” (428). Atkinson links love with the thunderstorm, having them occur in the same sentence. The diction here suggests turmoil: thunder “growled in the distance” and rain “thudded.” Atkinson teases a kind of burgeoning danger—something dark in the distance is fast approaching. However, Julia’s reaction is to speak the little French she knows and tells Jackson that “that’s life.” The ending humorously suggests that whatever awaits Jackson, he will weather it with his usual sardonic humor.