The Locked Door

“She is such a mom. Like if you were reading a book about a mom, she’d probably be like my mom. Every night she cooks dinner for us, makes sure I do all my homework, and cleans the house herself, top to bottom.”

This passage comes from a chapter narrated by 11-year-old Nora and reflects the immature tone that Freida McFadden uses to distinguish between adult and child Nora. The fact that Nora’s mother cleans the house “top to bottom” also suggests that she may have known her husband’s secrets in the basement.

“I wish I knew before the surgery. I wish I knew when his abdomen was sliced open and he was under anesthesia. One slip of his knife and I could have nicked his bowel. If I had done that, he wouldn’t be smacking around his wife. He would be experiencing a world of hurt right now.”

This passage, in which Nora considers harming a patient she believes is abusive, is the first explicit indication that Nora shares her father’s violent tendencies. Although the novel suggests that these tendencies are not necessarily inherited, at the end of the novel, it is revealed that Nora helped the patient’s wife to kill him.

“A relationship is a bad idea. I’ve always had trouble getting close to men. And even if I did get close to someone, then what? Marriage? Children? And then…Well, everyone knows what came next for my father.”

The Tensions Between Nature and Nurture is an important theme in the book as Nora struggles with the belief that she inherited her father’s violent tendencies. This passage indicates that Nora’s rejection of romantic relationships is connected to this fear: She worries that if she has children, they will also inherit Aaron Nierling’s violence.

“I know from experience my mother can’t tell when I’m lying. Not anymore.”

The chapters featuring Nora’s younger self suggest that she shares many traits with her father, dishonesty and charisma among them. This passage indicates that Nora not only lies to her mother but also understands that she is manipulating her. These chapters hint that Nora may not be a reliable narrator.

“I’ve never taken care of a living thing before—not even a plant—and I don’t dislike it. I’m glad I’m making the cat happy.”

The stray cat hanging around Nora’s home acts as an important symbol of her humanity. It is later revealed that she killed her small pets as a child, and doesn’t trust herself to have pets as an adult. Caring for the stray allows Nora to reconnect with her humanity.

“If I were someone else, Tiffany probably would’ve twisted my arm to get me to do it. But Tiffany doesn’t mess with me. She and I have an understanding.”

The chapters featuring Nora as a child suggest that she has always been able to manipulate the people in her life in order to get what she wants. This passage hints at the violent tendencies that Nora inherited from her father, as it implies that Tiffany knows Nora is willing and able to hurt her.

“I hate lavender more than anything. I still feel nauseated from the stench of that soap. I almost feel like I need to take a shower now to get it off me.”

In this passage, Nora has an intense physical reaction to the scent of lavender, which her father used to disguise his crimes. The novel suggests that Nora’s reaction is an indication of The Lasting Effects of Childhood Trauma in response to her father’s crimes.

“Brady owned a Halloween mask of my father’s face. Of course, why was I so surprised? Hadn’t we spent our entire relationship watching women get bludgeoned to death? It was a fictionalized version of my father’s life.”

Nora breaks up with her college boyfriend Brady, a horror film fanatic, when he shows her a Halloween mask of her father, a convicted serial killer. This passage suggests that the line between true crime and fictional horror stories is too thin to be insignificant. Ironically, the novel suggests that horror stories exploit real victims of tragedies.

“Like with Callahan, I decided to do an open surgery rather than using the cameras. It’s always my preference when I have a choice.”

Throughout the novel, McFadden suggests that Nora turned to surgery as a way of managing the violent impulses that she inherited from her father. Nora’s tendency to perform unnecessary surgeries and cut open patients rather than operating through laparoscopic methods is used as evidence of her propensity toward violence and invokes The Blurred Lines Between Professional and Personal Identities in the novel.

“My grandmother used to hate how much I looked like him. Sometimes she would stare at me and shake her head in disgust. You have the devil in you, Nora.”

Nora’s trauma is not limited to the violence that occurred in her home. This passage suggests that the reactions of her family, such as her grandmother, and her friends, such as Brady, are as hurtful as the original incident.

“Not every man is a psychotic killer, Nora. Brady is nice. He was nice back in college and he’s nice now. This room is just an office.”

In this passage, Nora attempts to convince herself that the locked door in Brady’s house is not a secret lair for violence like the locked door in her childhood home. Nora’s reluctance to trust men is evidence of The Lasting Effects of Childhood Trauma.

“It’s the same reason he liked dating me so much. It’s because I scare him. I gave him the same thrill he got from watching the slasher films back in college. He doesn’t even know about my father, but he knows there’s something about me. He senses it.”

This passage reflects the novel’s thematic interest in the debate over The Tensions Between Nature and Nurture. Nora believes that there is something inherently bad within her that can be easily identified by others. Ultimately, the novel suggests that Nora is able to overcome her genetic propensity toward violence and that Brady is drawn to her desire to be a good person.

“I like children. But I can’t risk passing on my genes to anyone else. I can’t risk creating another Aaron Nierling. I could never live with myself.”

Nora believes that she carries her father’s propensity for violence in her genetic code. Her desire not to have children is a reflection of that belief: She believes that if she has children, they will be violent like her father and herself.

“I didn’t even cry when I discovered my mother had killed herself […] I knew my grandmother was watching me, expecting me to squeeze out a few tears, and when I didn’t, it confirmed what she always believed about me.”

The novel sometimes implies that Nora has inherited her father’s antisocial tendencies. Her grandmother interprets the fact that she did not cry when her mother died as a lack of emotion and compassion, believing that Nora is evil like her father. In reality, Nora’s sense of numbness reflects The Lasting Effects of Childhood Trauma.

“I feel that familiar jolt of anticipation. Even after all these years, I still get that adrenaline rush every time I know I’m going to cut into somebody.”

Throughout the novel, characters—including Nora—sometimes connect her career as a surgeon to her father’s history as a serial killer. The idea that Nora chose to become a surgeon so she could legally cut people open is tied to The Blurred Lines Between Professional and Personal Identities, suggesting that Nora used her career to overcome a violent nature.

“[I wish] that I were a different sort of person. Somebody who could have spent years curled up on the couch with Brady, watching scary movies, because it’s fun and not because I’m a sociopath who needs therapy.”

The novel suggests that Nora may have inherited antisocial personality disorder, a mental health condition known popularly as sociopathy. This passage indicates that Nora herself believes that she has this condition. The novel’s representation of the condition suggests that Nora is able to overcome her struggles.

“This is the moment I imagined last night when I couldn’t sleep. The look on her face. The weight of the knife in my hand. She looks so scared. But now that I’m here, watching the fear in her eyes, I…I can’t.”

The penultimate chapter narrated by 11-year-old Nora reveals that, as her father suspects, she is interested in harming other people. However, Nora’s decision not to hurt Marjorie indicates that, even as a child, Nora is capable of controlling her emotions and stopping herself from doing wrong.

“I wonder if this is how my father felt when he had to dispose of one of his victims. Was he ever scared? Did he worry about getting caught? Or was he just wound up in the excitement of it all? This isn’t exciting. Not even a little bit.”

Although Nora clearly inherits some of her father’s negative characteristics, the novel suggests that there is one crucial difference between the two: Nora knows her father’s actions are wrong, and does not find hiding from the police to be a source of excitement. This passage indicates that Nora is beginning to recognize this difference and that it empowers her.

“But this isn’t about trusting him. If I tell him who my father is, he’s going to look at me differently. The same way Brady did.”

In the final section of the novel, Nora makes a number of mistakes that lead her to seem suspicious in the eyes of the investigators led by Detective Barber. This passage suggests that Nora’s mistakes are made not out of fear of being caught, but out of fear of changing the way others perceive her. For Nora, being perceived as different is almost worse than being considered a murderer.

“‘I’m well, Dr. Davis,’ she says. ‘I came here because I wanted you to know that…well, Arnold passed.’

My mouth feels suddenly dry. This isn’t the kind of news I need right now. ‘He did?’”

This passage is evidence of Nora’s relative unreliability as a narrator, as she claims to be upset by the death of Arnold Kellogg. However, it is later revealed that she provided Kellogg’s wife with the drugs necessary to kill him and make it look like an accident. The fact that this revelation comes at the end of the Epilogue means that Nora’s characterization is still left somewhat ambiguous.

“As soon as I go in there, my whole life is going to be different. There’s nothing I can do about it, but I just want to wait a little bit longer. I want to hold onto my old life just a little bit longer.”

The novel suggests that Nora suffers from The Lasting Effects of Childhood Trauma of not only her father’s violent actions but also the reaction of others to that violence and its impact on her daily life. This passage suggests that Nora recognizes that her life is going to change even as a child, as she prepares to turn her father in.

“For a moment, I have no idea what’s going on. And then I see the flash of black fur. It’s the cat. The cat attacked Harper.”

The stray cat hanging around Nora’s house acts as an important symbol of Nora’s humanity, which she feels her father has denied her. By taking care of the cat, Nora slowly restores her own humanity. The fact that the cat ultimately saves Nora’s life suggests that a sense of humanity is essential to a fulfilling life.

“I spent a lot of time thinking about it the last few days, and I know you. You’re a good person, Nora. I don’t care who your father is. I knew you couldn’t do something like that.”

The Tensions Between Nature and Nurture dominate the novel. Most characters adopt the perspective expressed by Brady in this passage: That despite her genetics, Nora is not more likely to be violent than any other person. However, the novel’s Epilogue suggests that Nora is a murderer like her father.