53 pages • 1 hour read
A. R. TorreEvery Last Secret
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Neena Ryder
While the male characters in the book serve as little more than pawns, the female characters drive the action. Neena’s obsession with William is the inciting factor for the entire book. She exemplifies Obsession with Wealth and Status because her financial situation prevents her from attaining the status she craves. Again and again, Neena expresses her urgent desire to upgrade her life, from her house to her husband. Everything Neena does, even taking the job at Winthorpe Technologies and moving to Atherton, is driven by this need to upgrade: “The proximity that our houses would grant and the potential social introductions from Cat could be the keys to the kingdom I deserved to live in” (36).
Neena’s intense need to climb the social ladder is driven by a hunger for power, wealth, and status. William is only a tool toward this end. This is exemplified in the approach Neena takes to the affair—she doesn’t really care if she ends up with William or not; she’ll happily blackmail him for money or become “the next Mrs. Winthorpe,” which will also mean financial gain and status (99). William, the person, is just as irrelevant as Ned Plymouth, the most recent man Neena had an affair with and blackmailed, and to whom she dismissively refers. Neena is mercenary and matter of fact about William: “William Winthorpe had been the right mark” (105) or “The real William Winthorpe was an asshole, and I was fascinated by him” (43). Neena thus provides an intriguing portrayal of an extramarital affair that’s not driven by passion but rather by a desire to climb the social ranks. In the end, she is a cautionary tale of the dangers of ruthless, calculated social striving.
Catherine Winthorpe (“Cat”)
Cat represents everything Neena wants. While Neena works to attain Cat’s life, Cat must work to maintain her life:
That was the secret to success in this town. Presenting a picture of effortless perfection with behind-the-scenes ruthless hard work. Everyone thought I woke up as Cat Winthorpe one day, but I had clawed and scraped for every piece of this life. Still did (39).
Cat’s character also allows the book to further its argument regarding capitalism. The Cat/Neena polarity is set up as the “haves” versus the “have-nots.” Cat’s wealth bestows a level of privilege that Neena can’t reach, and it’s precisely this privilege that allows Cat to come out on top. Cat’s wealth gives her personal connections to the chief of police (thanks to the six-figure donation the Winthorpes make to the police department); the resulting privilege allows Cat to plant the seed that Neena may have hired a hitman to kill Matt. Cat’s privilege emerges in other ways—for example, she has the money to hire a private investigator to dig into Neena’s past. At one point, Neena suggests Cat is more intelligent than Neena is: “William Winthorpe had been the right mark, targeted with a well-oiled execution, but I had made the horrible assumption that I was the smartest person in this game” (105). Cat may not be smarter; she has the perks of privilege.
Cat also represents deceit, and she is deceitful with everyone she encounters. She feigns ignorance at William’s affair. She pretends to be nice to Neena while plotting her downfall. She suggests concern for Matt after putting him through the traumatizing hitman experience. Cat is even deceitful opposite the reader. While Neena is clear about her questionable morals from the start, Cat proves to be an unreliable narrator. Finally, Cat lies to herself. Cat works hard to cling to her life with William in Atherton, but she’s clinging to a life that doesn’t seem to bring her much satisfaction. As the book ends, Cat is lying in bed with William and thinking about how her life offers only fleeting moments of happiness, and she suggests she doesn’t deserve more. Her deceit has harmed everyone, including herself.
Matt Ryder
Matt has little personal agency in the book. He’s largely a nuisance to Neena and an impediment to her aims. His lack of control over the narrative is a structural element because not a single chapter is told from his perspective; even William has an epilogue. While William is described as devastatingly handsome, Matt is described as “balding” and “a little chubby” (77). Much like their respective homes, the two men symbolize the “have”/”have-not” polarity between Cat and Neena—Cat has the gorgeous house and the gorgeous husband, while Neena has the rundown house and the rundown husband. Still, to Cat and Neena and in their social circles, having a husband is better than no husband and affords a higher social status. Single women, for example, are described as “single vultures” (77), so the fact that Neena keeps Matt around even though she seems to barely like him makes more sense. Although Matt’s character has little control over the narrative, he shows some character development after the hitman incident. First, he divorces Neena though he later admits that he misses her. He is the only character who has murdered somebody. Matt is the clueless “nice guy” buffoon in contrast to Neena, Cat, and William, who are all painted as deceitful and morally corrupt. The fact that Matt is the only killer subverts the reader’s expectations about what a murderer looks like.
Matt also symbolizes The Complexities of Marriage. That he stays with Neena even after believing that she attempted to kill him speaks to their tight bond. He is unable to shake free of the role of “protector” he adopted in his teenage years, when he first saved Neena from her abusive father. Further, Matt and Neena are inextricably bound by the secret they share about her father’s death and the location of his body. As a result, Matt demonstrates that people stay married for reasons other than shared love. People may stay together for the kids, for example, or for financial reasons or health reasons (access to a partner’s health insurance)—or, as in Matt and Neena’s case, because of a shared past. The facets of marriage, as the book demonstrates, are complex and sometimes contradictory.
William Winthorpe
Like Matt, William is largely passive in the book; he is the catalyst that drives Neena’s and Cat’s behavior. William’s first-person voice is introduced in the epilogue, which offers a surprising twist: William knows Cat set up Neena—and he likes her possessive, jealous side. William revels in Cat’s jealousy and manipulation. He seems unbothered by her extreme behavior: “My mother once said I had a weakness for crazy women. […] While I thought it had taken a hiatus with Cat, I was wrong” (282). William and Cat’s relationship also demonstrates The Complexities of Marriage. William and Cat are bound not only by want but also by a perceived need for one another. Cat becomes irate when William says Neena is “what [he] needed” (88) while she is elated when William tells her, “I need you here” (136). By the book’s end, William does need Cat; in the epilogue, he recognizes with gratitude that Cat could have easily framed both Neena and William for the attempt on Matt’s life but spared him. The secret between William and Cat about what Cat did ties them together just as firmly as the secret of Neena’s father’s murder binds Matt and Neena.
William is part of the book’s critique of capitalism, which is tied up in the theme of Obsessions with Wealth and Status. As the head of Winthorpe Technologies, a successful tech company in Palo Alto, William is a wealthy “tech bro” with questionable morals. He is the ultimate capitalist; in his life, everything revolves around his company’s success, and success is measured only by profits. William is a tough boss; both Neena and Cat attest to him shouting at employees. William hires Neena in the first place to raise morale at his company. Neena sums up William’s character: “The real William Winthorpe was an asshole, and I was fascinated by him” (43). William’s single-minded focus on making money is seen in his obsession with the FDA approval Winthorpe Technologies is awaiting. William puts his company first, even over his marriage, as is seen when Cat asks William to fire Neena—and he agrees to do so but only after the FDA approval comes through. Presumably, the FDA approval would mean big money for the company; which matters to William more than Cat’s concerns. It’s money, not relationships, that matters most to William. His preoccupation with money makes the lengths the women go to for William’s affections seem ludicrous, but Neena and Cat are driven primarily by a desire for the social capital that his money brings, rather than by a genuine desire for love.
