The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair

In Chapter 27, Marcus Goldman begins to investigate Nola’s death. In the tradition of crime fiction, the amateur detective is a common trope. It supplies a character who is emotionally involved with the investigation at hand, shaping the narrative of the novel and, crucially, offering a direct connection to the reader, because their positions are rooted in intuitions and guesswork rather than strict police procedure. In this chapter, we also get to know Sergeant Perry Gahalowood, another useful stock figure of this type of crime fiction subgenre: He is an official investigator, there to help guide the amateur detective and provide the necessary professional knowledge and admittance to places the amateur would not otherwise be able to access.

The dynamic between these two characters is significant as it determines the tone of their investigation, offering readers elements of conflict interspersed with humor as well as a sense of a journey their relationship will take; by the end of the novel, they will become friends, united by the trial they have gone through. Even as Gahalowood tells Marcus “I hate you, writer” (114), he adds: “You’ve been living in our bedroom! You’ve slept with us! You’ve had dinner with us! You’ve been on vacation with us! You’ve taken baths with my wife!” (114). The diction invites humor, which relativizes the first statement, especially as he is referring to the fact that his wife loved Marcus’s novel. The author brings an occasional sense of levity into several relationships within the novel, and Marcus’s communication with Perry is a key example of that.

On the other hand, Marcus’s communication with chief of police, Travis Dawn, is on the opposite end of the spectrum. Travis not only appears to take Marcus seriously but he also goes out of his way to satisfy Marcus’s curiosity. The author positions Travis’s character in this way because it is important that the reader not suspect the murderer from the outset; in the amateur detective subgenre, the culprit will most often be a character who appears likeable and helpful to the protagonist. However, in shaping Travis’s character, Dicker offers subtle foreshadowing clues that will retrospectively make sense to the reader. As Travis shows Marcus the place where the chase and the murder of Deborah Cooper took place, he uses sentences like “everything else is the way it was then,” “I’ll never forget this place” (102), and “for me, nothing has changed” (103).

The character of Marcus’s publisher, Roy Barnaski, is at the center of a subplot dealing with the harsh realities of the high-stakes publishing world. Brash, intolerant, bullying, and cajoling, Barnaski serves as a counterpoint to the idea of a writer who creates with only his respect for creation in mind. His suggestions to Marcus—“I can provide you with ghostwriters,” “it doesn’t have to be great literature—people just want to know what Quebert did with that girl,” and “some suspense and some sleazy details, and a little sex, of course” (111)—telegraph to the reader what kind of person he is at the outset. Dicker depicts Barnaski’s character in broad strokes because he represents the unscrupulous, money-grabbing schemer who is not interested in the truth; in that sense, he becomes an antagonist to Marcus, especially as he places a ticking clock to his investigation.

Chapter 26 is the first of several that takes place entirely in the past, with no reference to Marcus. Similar to other time switches, the author does not specify whether the third-person narrative is the told from the omniscient point of view or, possibly, a sequence taken from Marcus’s book. The fact that in several other instances the book extract is clearly marked does not necessarily imply this chapter holds a neutral perspective, as the novel as a whole does not support neutrality or omniscience that is completely distanced from at least one of the characters. This authorial technique is complex and layered, and it creates a sense of a multifaceted prism of happenings and timelines.

This chapter also represents a break in the main narrative at a crucial moment when someone has set fire to Marcus’s car. Known as a cliffhanger, the literary technique whereby one chapter ends abruptly at a high point of tension and the action moves to a different plotline altogether is also a trope of crime fiction, and it serves the purpose of heightening the sense of suspense and raising the stakes in readers’ involvement with the plot. 

In Chapter 25, the author further develops the central relationship between Harry and Nola. It is significant how much the fact that Harry has fallen in love with a 15-year-old girl troubles him. As he answers her question, “What’s wrong with what we’re doing?” with “You know perfectly well what’s wrong with it. Or maybe you don’t” (143), it is clear he realizes his position as the adult is to shelter Nola from a potentially damaging relationship. Harry is torn between what he believes is morally right and proper the immensity of his feelings for the young girl, which start to resemble obsession. This is even more evident in Chapter 24, when Nola verbalizes the love she feels and Harry attempts to push Nola away, saying “those words are forbidden” (159), even though hurting her is hard for him.

Meanwhile, Jenny Quinn begins to develop an obsession of her own towards Harry. Her mother, depicted as alarmingly insensitive, pushes her daughter onto Harry to further her own agenda of imagined advancement in the world. Switching the narrative into the past strengthens the heady atmosphere the author depicts, so that the first-person recollection does not mediate the feelings characters experience. This authorial technique invites the readers to participate directly in the events of the past.

Chapter 23 focuses mostly on Nola’s father, the former Reverend David Kellergan, and Nola’s school friend Nancy Hattaway. Both provide Marcus with details regarding Nola’s character and her behavior in the summer of 1975. As opposed to David Kellergan, whom the author fleshes out in increments throughout the book, Nancy remains a stock character, serving the purpose of supplying particular pieces of information when needed. This chapter is significant structurally as Dicker positions here one of the central misdirections of the plot: Marcus’s mistaken belief that Nola’s mother was alive in 1975. The plot requires us to believe alongside Marcus that Nola’s mother, Louise, is alive and that Nola is in danger from her. This belief supplies an illusion of motivation for Nola’s desire to run away from Somerset and hides from us a fact that will be revealed later: She suffers from infantile psychosis, which leads her to believe her mother lives inside of her.

David Kellergan’s character is thus best understood retrospectively, as his listening to loud music, which we first take to mean he is covering for Louise’s beatings, reveals itself to be his weakness in dealing with his daughter’s condition. Similar to Travis with Nola’s necklace, he states, “The music is my punishment” (287): a disruptive symbol of his refusal to face reality. What this also implies is that Nola’s untreated condition might well have seeped into her whole behavior, which in turn casts doubt on the reality of her love toward Harry, and whether the young girl was even capable of experiencing rational emotions. In that sense, Nola is the victim not only of a murder but of serious neglect, and all the adult characters who interact with her, including Harry, are responsible for not assessing her behavior correctly as a product of psychiatric illness.