No One Can Know: A Novel

“Emma’s breath caught in her throat. Home, she thought, and wished it didn’t feel true.”

Emma is both drawn to and repelled by her childhood home, as this observation illustrates. Emma’s mixed response shows that she has not yet confronted or made peace with her past. In this sense, home represents Emma’s childhood and her rebellious teenage self.

“Beyond was a long drive leading to a circular driveway, an empty fountain in the center, and rolling lawns to either side, with sparse woods beyond the house.”

The Palmer mansion is the novel’s main setting and integral to its central mystery. Author Kate Alice Marshall describes the house and its grounds detail to convey a sense of both majesty and foreboding. The large but ominous home is a classic setting in mystery and psychological horror novels, as well as Gothic fiction.

“She knew it was terrible, but she never cared to get to know her clients. She worked better thinking of them not as people but as a series of problems to solve.”

This passage sets up clues to Daphne’s role in the novel’s murders. Here, Daphne’s observation about her terminally ill patients shows that she has a clinical, detached attitude toward death and dying, which is a significant clue. However, the clue is hidden in a caring profession, which on its face suggests Daphne is a kind, well-meaning person. This foreshadows her approach to killing as a protective measure and reflects The Psychological Effects of Abuse and Trauma.

“Emma deserved better—but then, she had always played the part of caretaker and martyr in relationships.”

Daphne notes one of Emma’s greatest weaknesses: her inability to form equitable relationships. This passage suggests that she is the most observant of the three sisters, despite also being the youngest.

“No one can know.”

The novel derives its title from these words, which Daphne says to Emma first on the night of their parents’ deaths, and again after she nearly kills Hadley. Apart from raising the question of what, exactly, Daphne doesn’t want anyone to know, the phrase invokes the motif of family secrets and lies and the theme of The Complex Bond of Sisterhood. Daphne wants her crimes to remain a secret to protect herself and her sisters; Emma complies with Daphne because of their mutual trust and close bond.

“Daphne is twelve, and somehow both an ‘old soul’ and ‘young for her age,’ which means she doesn’t have many friends.”

This description of the youthful Daphne establishes both her naivete and observational skill, setting up the novel’s later revelations about her. These lines also describe a lonely child, suggesting that Daphne’s attachment to her sisters comes in part because they, unlike other people, understand her.

“‘It’s not asthma, it’s a panic attack. It’s in her head,’ Mom says. She stands straight and still and tall, her hair in a perfect, honey-colored bob. […] Daphne slides slowly down the wall, trying and trying to breathe.”

Marshall uses the literary device of juxtaposition to illustrate the abusive dynamic in the Palmer household. Here, the image of a panting, falling child contrasts starkly with the composed, powerful adult who stands “still and […] perfect.” These juxtaposed images show how Irene uses her power as an adult to dominate and control her daughter.

“A pregnancy wasn’t a promise.”

Emma’s response to her pregnancy illustrates how trauma has affected her way of thinking. Because Emma has lost her parents, and, effectively, her sisters, as well as experiencing a miscarriage, she knows that life can always turn tragic.

“Two more blows, at her side below her ribs, carefully calibrated. Pain, not damage. A horrid wheeze in her throat as she tries to take a breath. He releases her.”

The author uses graphic and precise language in this passage to convey emotional and physical impact of the abuse in the Palmer house, emphasizing the theme of The Domestic as a Dangerous Space. Randolph punches Emma to convey his dominance. His abuse of his daughters shows that violence happens often in that supposedly safest of spaces—home.

“‘You tracked my phone,’ she said evenly.

‘Can you blame me? I woke up and you weren’t here.’

‘I sent you a text. I left you a note,’ Emma said. She glanced over; the note was in the trash. He had found it then.”

Marshall infuses psychological realism in the novel by rendering the dynamics of emotional manipulation. In this passage, Nathan spies on Emma, violating her privacy, but disregards her attempts to communicate and shifts the blame onto her for leaving the house.

“She could never get it right. The perfect balancing act of the right way to speak, to be, to look, to feel, so your innocence could be confirmed. Once you were tainted, you were never clean.”

Emma’s thoughts highlight an important concern in the novel: the isolation and judgement meted out to people accused of a crime. Emma walks on eggshells to appear acceptable in Arden Hills, despite the public assumption that she killed her parents. Emma’s words also apply to her relationship with the suspicious and judgmental Nathan.

“Her father asked her if she’d done anything with that boy she ought to be ashamed of. She promised she hadn’t […] and he held her chin and stared into her eyes, and with his thumb smeared the peach-colored lip-gloss from her lips. ‘Keep it that way,’ he said.”

Randolph’s obsession with his daughters’ virginity is a motif in the text. In this scene, Marshall captures Randolph’s menace in a few lines. Not only does he grill 15-year-old JJ about her supposed sexual behavior, but he also violates her physical space by gripping her chin and wiping off her lip gloss. A sense of physical and sexual menace underlines Randolph’s actions.

“Once mom has checked on her, she’s good for the night. […] This is the advantage of playing along that Emma has never understood.”

In this scene, JJ reveals that, contrary to Emma’s assumption that JJ is compliant, her “golden-child” act is a survival technique. By pretending to be her parents’ ideal daughter, JJ throws their suspicion, biding her time before she can move out. Here, she knows she can sneak out of the house without raising suspicion because her mother believes her incapable of duplicity.

“Who am I? I am a secret, she thinks, every part of me concealed.”

JJ’s thoughts in this passage highlight the text’s key motif of lies and secrets, while revealing her complexity. While privacy and secrecy are important to developing a private self, imposed concealment can be suffocating. JJ is forced to keep her true identity a secret, which traumatizes her considerably.

“When had she decided that it was better to be miserable than to be alone, she wondered. Or had that always been the price she was paying?”

Another example of the text’s psychological realism, this statement shows why Emma persists in her unhealthy relationship, in part due to the abuse in her past. Emma has long believed being miserable is better than being alone, which is why she accepts Nathan’s manipulation. However, here, Emma questions this dynamic, highlighting her growing self-awareness.

“Nathan had always found it amusing. He laughed at her for the grand tragic scripts she wrote out in her head. But it wasn’t at all amusing to be inside of that relentless what-if.”

This passage illustrates Nathan’s insensitivity regarding Emma’s past trauma. He laughs at her habit of assuming the worst, disregarding the lived experience that informs that habit. Emma’s fears can be exhausting for her. Ironically, Emma recalls this behavior after Nathan’s murder, an example of the text’s use of bleak humor.

“And I’m wondering, who’s Emma Palmer going to lie for? And the only thing I can think is how close you three were.”

Hadley’s observation in this passage is close to the truth because he recognizes that outspoken and honest Emma would lie only for the sake of her sisters. Though Emma believes her sisters and she are not close any longer, this passage suggests that the bonds of sisterhood, while complex, are persistent and unbreakable.

“‘Look, you can see his brain,’ Juliette says, pointing. Her finger so close to the wound that it almost touches.

Daphne slaps it away with a sound of horror.”

Marshall sparingly uses graphic and gory descriptions to add an element of horror to the narrative. In this passage, teenage JJ sees her father’s corpse, and the visceral damage the bullet did to it. JJ’s behavior also shows her traumatized state, trying to dissociate herself from the horrific sight. Daphne’s response displays her fleeting guilt at having shot her father.

“She is in the water. She lets go of everything she can, every horrible memory, but shards of it lodge inside her. […] She will lose the pieces that could have saved her, but those will burrow into her flesh.”

These lines illustrate the effects of trauma on JJ’s memory. After her parents’ shootings, JJ walks into the river to figuratively wash away the ghastly sight. However, while her conscious mind may forget, her subconscious retains the memories and they haunt her for a long time, reawakened the next time she is in the river.

“They went back to the house. They always went back to the house. It was like a gravity well, a black hole from which nothing could escape, not even light.”

Like Emma, JJ admits that their old house has a pull on her. The narrative suggests this pull is partly their unresolved past and partly the safe spaces the sisters built for each other in the violent confines of their home. The novel suggests that the way forward for the Palmer sisters is to claim the house as theirs, literally and figuratively.

“Maybe he didn’t deserve to die. Hardly no one did, really. But some deserved it more than others.”

Daphne’s matter-of-fact consideration of who deserves to live adds a chilling note to the novel’s peaceful resolution and suggests that Daphne feels no remorse for her actions. She believes her killing Nathan was akin to dispensing justice.

“Emma. She didn’t understand how her name on his lips could have that kind of power, to mean a thousand things at once. It was a question, and invitation, a plea.”

Patient and sensitive Gabriel is the novel’s romantic hero and foil to the manipulative Nathan. Emma and Gabriel’s reconnection at the text’s end means Emma is close to achieving her domestic dream, surrounded by Gabriel, her daughter, and her sisters.

“Really, someone ought to put him out of his misery.”

Putting someone out of their misery is Daphne’s euphemism for murder. Daphne’s casual thoughts about murdering Hadley are darkly funny and foreboding.