Hooked: A Dark, Contemporary Romance

The romance between James and Wendy deepens in these chapters, and jealousy comes to the forefront for both characters. This jealousy emphasizes the gendered interactions in the novel. Previous chapters depicted James’s desire to possess and control Wendy; this possessive behavior escalates when James tortures and murders the coffee shop customer. Although the man did not express interest in Wendy, James perceives the harassment as a personal affront even though he has no formal relationship with her at this point. Likewise, he quickly steers Wendy out of the room with Ru to keep them apart. James has graduated from fantasizing about Wendy to directly interfering in her life, which infringes upon Wendy’s autonomy, reflecting Women’s Struggle for Independence in a Patriarchal World.

This possessiveness is not exclusive to James specifically or to men in general. Maria is specifically hostile to Wendy when it seems she has “lost” James to her. Insulting Wendy’s personality and physical appearance, Maria tries to shame Wendy out of pursuing a relationship with James. However, Maria’s actions have the opposite effect of pushing Wendy to James. Though Wendy’s choice to go to James is not inherently a bad decision, it is at least partly driven by homosocial negativity—hostility among people of the same sex or gender. In this case, Maria and Wendy’s competition for the attentions of one man positions James as an object to be won and implies that attaining his affection will fulfill the “victor” in some undefined way. While James’s jealousy is possessive and self-serving, a type of defense against interference in his plans to pursue a relationship with Wendy, Wendy’s jealousy stems more from anxiety that James might prefer another woman over her.

As the situation between Wendy, Jon, and Peter becomes clearer, so too does McIntire’s sly reinvention of the Peter Pan source material, for Wendy’s childhood as Peter’s “little shadow” casts her in the role of someone whose very essence is less than that of a full person. Far from being permitted to develop her own autonomous sense of self, Wendy is characterized as her father’s “shadow.” This denies her any sense of agency and betrays the reality of her utter subordination in this skewed father-daughter relationship, for by definition, a shadow is incapable of independent action and cannot exist on its own. Jon, by contrast, is not Peter’s shadow, nor does Peter hold him in high esteem. Peter’s unilateral decision to send Jon to boarding school ensures that Jon will stay out of sight and cause him no further trouble. Peter’s expectation that Jon and Wendy will simply do as they are told shows his commanding personality, which is not significantly different from James’s, for both men expect others to obey their commands unquestioningly. Thus, Wendy is caught between two domineering masculine figures as her continual struggle to gain her own agency exemplifies Women’s Struggle for Independence in a Patriarchal World. Furthermore, within the rules of McIntire’s universe, Wendy can never fully achieve independence, for even her eventual triumph over Peter is inextricably linked to her codependent desire to serve James’s interests. In the meantime, however, this struggle to assert her own will in the world greatly explains her hesitation in her almost reluctant attraction to James, who shares many of the negative traits she so deplores in her father.

Jealousy plays into Wendy’s relationship with Peter, too, when she hears a woman’s voice in the background of their phone call. This situation suggests that Peter is choosing to spend time with a woman rather than providing support or comfort for his children. Wendy’s irritation therefore reflects the trope in which the child is jealous of the parent’s partner. Just as Maria has the potential to threaten any relationship with James, the woman on the phone has the potential to claim Peter’s attention. In both cases, Wendy is jealous of women who threaten to take away a source of masculine attention, and while this urge contrasts strongly with her desire for personal independence, it is nonetheless a significant part of her psychological makeup, as is demonstrated in her developing relationship with James.

More backstory is given on James in this section, as well, including the line “straight on ’til morning” (50). This is a reference to a famous line from J. M. Barrie’s original play, which famously utilizes the phrase in the directions leading children to Neverland. In Hooked, however, the inscription contextualizes Ru and James’s friendship as an avenue of escape for the young James. When James first came to America with his uncle, he sought to escape his uncle’s constant abuse by turning to Ru, a criminal, for guidance and protection. This revelation further establishes James and Ru as legitimate criminals yet reluctant villains, for they have a genuine and meaningful friendship that is based on a mutual experience of trauma. Their more heartless and reprehensible actions are somewhat tempered by moments of emotional vulnerability. In this way, McIntire tries to walk The Fine Line Between Criminality and Villainy in her nuanced characterization of these two figures, for her depictions of James and Ru’s friendship attempt to mitigate her earlier characterization of James as a cold-blooded killer willing to torture and murder a man for being rude to Wendy. However, the success of the author’s attempts to show James in a more sympathetic light is a judgment ultimately left up to the reader.

In further efforts to portray Wendy’s presence as a mitigating influence, McIntire uses the couple’s interactions to slowly bring forth a more caring and vulnerable side of James despite his many toxic and abusive urges. In these earlier chapters of the novel, James’s vulnerability is also expressed in the form of jealousy and surprise at Wendy’s bold actions in his office. He is caught off guard by her independent interest in him, both because he expected to have to manipulate her into a romantic footing, and because he is genuinely shocked by her attraction to him. This vulnerability extends beyond James’s emotional state to encompass his day-to-day interactions with the subordinates of his organization; like any tyrant, he fears being subverted or overthrown, and his interrogation of Jason implies that there are traitors among his workers—a reality that foreshadows the truth that his power and control are far from absolute.