55 pages • 1 hour read
John MarrsThe One
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Mandy Summary: Chapters 26, 31, 36, 41, 46
Some days later, Mandy accepts an invitation to meet Richard’s mother, Pat. Pat gushes over Mandy, proclaiming that Richard would have adored her. She tells Mandy that Richard’s greatest wish in life was to settle down and have a family. Pat invites Mandy to see Richard’s room, and she leaves Mandy alone there. When Mandy smells Richard’s scent on his clothes, she realizes that she is deeply in love with a man she has never met.
Over the next months, Mandy begins avoiding her mother and sisters. She hasn’t told them that her Match is dead, and they wouldn’t understand what that means to her. She spends her time with Pat and Chloe instead. One night, while staying over at Pat’s house, Mandy goes into Richard’s room. Going through his possessions, she finds an old cell phone that contains nude photos of a young woman who was obviously close to Richard. Mandy falls asleep on Richard’s bed, where Pat finds her. Pat assures her that she can use Richard’s room whenever she wants.
Eventually, Pat asks Mandy if she would like children of her own. When Mandy confesses how desperately she wants children, Pat tells her that if she wants to, Mandy could carry Richard’s baby. After a bout with testicular cancer many years ago, Richard had a sperm sample stored, in case of a relapse. Mandy can’t stop thinking about Pat’s offer. It’s affecting her work. When her manager calls her into his office and makes some sexist and patronizing remarks, Mandy reports him to HR, takes a settlement in lieu of a discrimination suit, and quits. She goes directly to Pat and accepts her offer to let her carry Richard’s baby.
Christopher Summary: Chapters 14, 21
Christopher stands outside the restaurant window watching his Match, Amy Brookbanks, fidget and check her watch. He waits long enough to put her off balance before going in, pretending to have just arrived. He’s not good at reading facial expressions, but he has studied human behavior enough to recognize her instant attraction to him. He too feels something strange, a kind of lightheadedness. He dismisses it as lack of sleep. His nights have been very busy lately. The evening seems to be going well, and they are becoming more relaxed when Christopher finally asks Amy what she does for a living. Amy is a police officer.
The discovery shocks Christopher. When he recovers from the surprise, his first thought is to find out what the police know about him: not much. Amy is cagey about discussing the case with someone outside the department.
Dropping the subject, they move on to casual conversation about why they registered with Match Your DNA. Christopher tries to impress her by repeating lines he’s read in books about what women want in a relationship. Amy immediately picks up on the falsity and challenges him on it, saying that being Matched means they needn’t go through all that game-playing—like standing outside the restaurant for half an hour to put her off balance. Realizing Amy has seen through him—at least in part—arouses Christopher, and so does the fact that she is a cop. It adds an extra layer of challenge and excitement to their relationship.
Jade Summary: Chapters 18, 23, 28, 33, 38, 43
Jade is bewildered by Kevin’s rejection. As she drives away, she feels humiliated to have crossed half the world to dump herself on Kevin’s doorstep unannounced. She stops her thought spiral, however, and looks at the situation from another angle: She would have been delighted had Kevin done the same thing. There are all kinds of reasons why he might not want to see her. Perhaps he has somehow been deceiving her. Maybe he has a wife and kids. Maybe he is as bad as all the scumbags her friends Shawna and Lucy have been dating.
Jade drives back to confront Kevin. She knocks on his door until someone opens it. The man in front of her looks like Kevin but a few years older. He lets her in, and when she sees a set of family photos, she realizes he must be Kevin’s older brother, Mark. Jade demands an explanation. Mark tries to put her off, but Kevin’s voice comes from the doorway. Jade turns to face him, and she is shocked by his gaunt appearance. Kevin has lymphoma and only a month or two to live. He offers Jade the opportunity to go home and forget about him, but Jade decides to stay.
Kevin’s health declines rapidly. Jade dreads losing him, but she isn’t sure whether it would be Kevin she really missed or just the idea of having a soulmate. On top of that, something impossible has happened: She has fallen in love with Mark the way she should have with Kevin. She knows from the way Mark looks at her and the way he avoids her that he feels the same.
Nick Summary: Chapters 29, 34, 39, 44, 49, 54, 59
A few days later, Alex phones Nick. Neither of them has been able to think about anything but each other. They meet to talk it over, and the spark is still there. It makes no sense. Neither of them believes himself gay, but the attraction is electric.
Nick and Alex avoid each other after that. Sally arranges for Nick and herself to take a trip together. Nick feels guilty that he let Alex come between them, but he feels as if Sally is trying to make up for something as well. When they come back from the trip, Nick can no longer resist temptation. He goes to one of Alex’s rugby games, intending just to watch, but Alex spots him, and they wind up leaving together.
Nothing in any of Nick’s relationships with women prepared him for what he feels with Alex. They spend more time together, but always looming is the knowledge that their time together is limited. Alex will be leaving for New Zealand, and Nick is still engaged to Sally.
Nick confesses about Alex to Deepak. Deepak tells Nick he owes it to himself to follow through with Alex, but Nick doesn’t want to cheat on Sally. Deepak tells him sometimes you’ve got to put yourself first and that everybody cheats anyway. Deepak then tells Nick that Sumaira is pregnant with twins. Sometime later, Nick and Sally throw a dinner party. Sally is talking about their wedding plans, and Deepak and Sumaira’s perfect marriage is grating on Nick’s nerves. He asks Sumaira to describe what it felt like when she met her Match, Deepak. Sumaira’s answer makes it clear that they were never actually Matched. When Nick tells them what being Matched really feels like, he inadvertently uses the word “him,” telling Sally that he is talking about his irresistible attraction to Alex. She realizes that he has been seeing Alex behind her back. Sally breaks off the engagement, freeing Nick to be with Alex.
Ellie Summary: Chapters 40, 45, 50, 55
Four days after the incident with the woman outside the restaurant, Ellie has recovered her nerve enough to give Tim an explanation. She announces that she is the discoverer of the Match gene. She fears he will find her wealth intimidating, but Tim assures her that he doesn’t care. He asks why the woman outside the restaurant attacked her. She explains that when she was setting up her company database and Matching technology, she cut a few corners, but it was “all for the greater good” (130). Of course, sometimes a Match goes wrong. Someone might find themselves Matched to a criminal, for example, and some people blame her, unfairly, for those unfortunate situations. She discovered the gene, but she can’t control how people abuse that discovery.
Tim assures her that none of this changes his feelings for her. They kiss for the first time, and finally, Ellie feels the long-awaited euphoria. Four months go by, and Ellie is reveling in her relationship with Tim. She takes him to visit her family, where he seems to fit in better than she does herself.
Ellie begins interacting more with other people, even attending her company’s Christmas party. There, Kat, the head of personnel, mentions that she recognizes Tim from a job interview a year or two ago. She thinks his name is Matthew, and she assumes that is where Ellie met him. Ellie explains that no, Kat must have mixed him up with someone else. Ellie feels a little uneasy but dismisses it.
Part 2 Analysis
The situation becomes increasingly complex for each character, driving them into conflict with some aspect of self or environment. In Mandy’s storyline, for example, the fact that she is in love with a dead man she has never met presents an external complication, but even before she imprints on the smell of Richard’s clothes, she is living in a delusion. Aided and abetted by Richard’s mother and sister, she has created a fantasy life in which she is married to Richard and has children with him.
In Christopher’s case, dating a cop would be challenging enough for any serial killer, but being Matched with Amy and beginning to have feelings for her undermines his sense of superiority to others. Kevin’s illness, which he concealed from Jade, prevents Jade from having the future she wants, and she struggles with guilt that her feelings for him are not what they should be. In Nick’s storyline, his growing obsession with Alex conflicts with his desire to be faithful to Sally, whom he also loves. Finally, Ellie, still unaware of the external complication of Tim’s deception, is taking the emotional risk of openness to engagement with other people.
Marrs’s fictional Match technology steadily accrues a dimension of irony as the novel progresses. Much of this irony lies in the fact that a promise of Match Your DNA is simplicity: Meet your Match, and all problems will be overcome. The reality is much more complicated. People create their own problems with secrets and conflicting desires.
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By John Marrs
