Holly

“She’s a better, stronger person than she once was, but she’s still a deeply private person.”

Though Holly is a standalone novel, its protagonist has appeared in several other King novels. As a result, she has already experienced character growth “off-screen” before the events of Holly.

“As an avid Trump supporter—a fact she trumpeted to her daughter at every opportunity—she refused to get vaccinations or even to wear a mask.”

In Holly, King touches on sociopolitical topics, including the varying response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Holly portrays the anti-vaccination, anti-mask contingent in a negative light, reflecting King’s real-world views on the topic.

“Holly’s grief when bad when Bill passed—pancreatic cancer—but the grief she feels now is somehow deeper, more complicated, because Charlotte Gibney was, tell the truth and shame the devil, a woman who specialized in smotherlove.”

After losing her mother, Holly experiences the convoluted process of grieving an abusive parent. She spends much of the novel trying to extricate herself from a tangle of conflicting emotions about Charlotte’s death.

“I have Holly hope, she thinks, and goes into the bedroom to put on her pajamas and say her prayers.”

Holly is defined by her hope and resilience. She embodies the theme of Resilience Against Hardships.

“The girl is infuriating, and it doesn’t help that the goddamned sciatica has kept her up half the night. An uppity, smartass bitch! BLACK bitch!”

Emily Harris hides caustic racism and anti-Black hatred behind her calm exterior, a contrast which makes her a compellingly detestable villain; only her diary entries reveal to the world the extent of her despicable views. The contrast between how she presents and her actual identity shows the difficulty of discerning Perception Versus Reality.

“It’s a lot more than that, but Dutton is a sensitive subject and an old story: young Black man, busted taillight, traffic stop. The officer approaching says keep your hands on the wheel, but Dutton reaches for his phone.”

The Maleek Dutton murder draws on real-life murders of unarmed Black men by police in the US. King makes the point that this scenario occurs with tragic regularity, to the point of becoming a cultural narrative.

“There will be no more trips to Australia, probably not even to New York for their once-every-two-years Broadway binge, but life is still worth living. Especially when every step isn’t an exercise in agony.”

Emily and Rodney Harris refuse to accept The Inevitability of Aging and Death. To them, life is only worth living if they can turn back the clock, a venture they fail at.

“My mother lied. Uncle Henry did, too. She shuts that down and makes her call.”

Holly explores the differing ways that people deal with hardship. Holly herself handles negative emotions by channeling them into her work, a quality which makes her a good investigator.

“‘We stopped arguing.’ She pauses. ‘Well, no, not entirely. You can’t not argue with your kid.’”

Here, Vera touches on one of the novel’s key themes: The Complexity of Parent-Child Relationships. Parenting is complicated, and it’s normal for parents to argue with their children and make mistakes so long as they don’t cross the line into abuse.

“She’ll either cope—go back to her meetings, sober up, get on with her life—or she won’t.”

Plainly stated, this is Holly’s philosophy on grief and trauma. In the face of upsetting events, people must make the active choice to move forward. The other option is to give up—but this is a maladaptive reaction.

“It was Bill who convinced her she could be her own person. He never said it out loud. He never had to. It was all in the way he treated her.”

Through Holly’s memories, King explores the importance of the relationship between Holly and Bill Hodges. Bill helped Holly grow into herself and achieve independence from her toxic family.

“Holly is also looking around and hearing her mother everywhere her eyes stop. Her mother’s voice, always starting with how many times have I told you.”

Charlotte’s effect on Holly continues after her death, with Holly often recalling her mother’s advice as she goes about her daily life. The recurrence of Charlotte’s words illustrates how parents have a lifelong influence on their children, for better or for worse.

“The question is simple: face or forget? Face, of course.”

One of the central themes of Holly is how people continue living beyond trauma. Here, Holly frames it simply—she faces her pain because she must, because it is the only way forward.

“She and her mother in each one, no sign of the mostly absent father, most with her mother’s arm around her shoulders. Is it that love, protectiveness, or an arresting officer’s come-along? Maybe all three.”

This quote examines the nature of Charlotte and Holly’s relationship. Holly wonders if her mother’s choices were motivated by love, protectiveness, or control, and concludes that it was likely all three.

“It’s my upbringing. I am not to blame.”

This quote follows Emily mentally calling Barbara a racial slur. She excuses her own racism as a product of her time, but this excuse falls flat when she is compared to Olivia, who is older than Emily but exhibits none of her vitriolic biases.

“‘No love lost.’ Keisha considers this. ‘You could say that, but plenty of love left.’”

Keisha’s description of Bonnie and Penny’s relationship captures the overarching depiction of parent-child relationships in Holly. Though often contentious, they are nevertheless filled with love—in fact, the conflicts of parents and children are often motivated by the fears and unfulfilled hopes that comes with this love.

“The talent was there before awful things happened to you, it came with the original equipment just as your brother’s did, but talent is a dead engine. It runs on every unresolved experience—every unresolved trauma, if you like—in your life. Every conflict. Every mystery.”

Olivia believes that pain can be used as fuel for good art. This reframing of pain as a driving force plays into the theme of Resilience Against Hardships. In the context of Holly, this quote may function as a nod to how King himself uses writing as a coping mechanism.

“‘Remember who you belong to,’ Charlotte says.”

Even after Charlotte’s death, Holly struggles to shake the perception that her mother still controls her. It is not until the end of the novel that she fully overcomes this feeling of being owned by someone else.

“Old age is a time of casting away, which is bad enough, but it’s also a time of escalating indignities.”

Olivia summarizes why people fear aging: It is a process that involves the loss of loved ones and, for many, the eventual the surrender of one’s independence. Still, Olivia approaches old age with her characteristic good humor.

“If it goes on like this, I’ll be out of business. All because of some fake flu. If the fucking democrats hadn’t stolen the election…”

The characters Holly encounters during her investigation share varying views on the pandemic and American politics. Through these interactions, King captures real-world political tensions between increasingly extremist positions on the right and those who avoid conspiratorial thinking.

“Holly doesn’t mind old people. It’s something about the way Hugh Clippard is handling his old age that makes her queasy.”

One of Holly’s key themes is the importance of accepting the hard parts of life. King highlights this theme by having Holly express discomfort at Hugh Clippard’s attempts to ward off the effects of aging.

“Harris isn’t killing people, not at his age, and the idea that his wife is helping him do it is ridiculous, so if what Holly is thinking is true, he must be covering for someone.”

Despite her prowess as an investigator, Holly makes surface-level character judgments about the Harrises—unable to discern Perception Versus Reality—which stop her from catching them earlier. Having even the novel’s intelligent and analytic protagonist make this mistake conveys how common it is for humans to make split-second judgments about one another.

“I escaped. Thanks to Bill and only by the skin of my teeth, but I did.”

Holly realizes that she is no longer under Charlotte’s control. She comes to trust and respect herself more fully than she did at the start of the narrative.