The Name of This Book Is Secret

Max-Ernest is the other protagonist of the novel. Like Cass, he is a misfit due to his excessive chattiness and obsession with jokes, to the degree that most of his peers find him annoying. Max-Ernest’s “condition,” his inability to stop talking, is a core part of his characterization and his arc in the novel. Like Cass’s survivalism, Max-Ernest’s talkativeness and fixation on logic help him navigate the secondary world, but these traits have negative components too.

Max-Ernest both complements and foils Cass. Like Cass, he is ostracized by his peers, but Max-Ernest’s isolation is much more intense. Cass is entirely focused on independence and survivalism; she takes little interest in her peers and so isn’t terribly bothered by the distance between them (in fact, she’s usually annoyed by others). Max-Ernest, on the other hand, is desperate to connect. Lacking the social skills or tools to foster friendship, he tells jokes to get people to like him, but this backfires, as he is constantly perceived as “annoying.” Additionally, Cass gets love and support from her family; she is close to her mother and her grandfathers, who take her seriously. Max-Ernest’s home life is pretty bleak; his parents are divorced yet refuse to live separately, leading to an absurd situation where they have divided the house in two, with neither parent able to breach the other’s territory or even interact with the other. Max-Ernest is little more than an object in the argument between his parents, and the battle between them leaves him entirely disregarded. So while Cass has familial support, Max-Ernest lacks a stable home and a supportive family. This, combined with his poor social skills, leaves him isolated, whereas Cass is just detached.

In the narrative, Max-Ernest is mediator between disparate things. Initially, this role is hurtful, as he finds himself stuck between his parents. But once he enters the Secret world, this positioning turns into a strength. Max-Ernest is the codebreaker; using his logical skills, he translates seemingly nonsensical riddles into their true meanings. This turns Max-Ernest into a kind of linguistic mediator, which is paralleled by his role as a mediator in his parents’ relationship and is further reinforced at the end, when he becomes an interpreter for Benjamin Blake, as Max-Ernest is the only one who can make sense of his mumbling. Ultimately, Max-Ernest’s codebreaking skills reflect his role as an intermediary between two spectrums, an idea that is also represented in his character arc, as he achieves balance between self-acceptance and self-growth, and between logic and emotion.

Max-Ernest’s character arc reinforces the themes of embracing personal differences and balancing beneficial and detrimental behaviors. At the end of the novel, Max-Ernest learns how to process his emotions, thanks to a doctor who suggests that he talks so much to avoid his feelings. In Chapter 0, Max-Ernest’s condition is “cured” (337), as he’s learned to set logic aside to evaluate and name his emotions. However, Max-Ernest has not completely transformed all his traits and qualities; he is still plenty talkative, still very logical, and still a jokester. This represents both an acceptance of his unique character traits and a newfound awareness of when a quality does not serve his best interests. This complements Cass’s arc, in which she adapts her pure survivalist worldview to accommodate interdependence. Max-Ernest adapts his strictly logical processing to accommodate emotional processing, which bolsters his communication skills and strengthens his role as mediator, translator, and codebreaker.

Ms. Mauvais is one of the novel’s main antagonists. She is the leader of the Masters of the Midnight Sun, and her goal is to attain immortality. She appears as a young, attractive woman but is actually much older, although her exact age is not known. Characters with synesthesia, like Pietro and Benjamin Blake, describe her voice in terms that warn of villainy. Pietro says that it “made me feel like as if I was drowning” (139), while Benjamin describes her voice as “smoke gray” (255), which signals a liar in his experience. These perceptions reinforce the fact that Ms. Mauvais’s outer appearance disguises an inner evil. Even her name hints at internal corruption: mauvais is a French word that means “bad” or “wrong.”

Ms. Mauvais is fixated on an ideal of perfection; her goal to attain immortality is a reflection of this. She is focused on maintaining a flawless outer appearance, going so far as to wear wigs and constantly undergo plastic surgery to perfect her ears. She appears “like a Barbie doll brought to life” (75)—her blonde hair, blue eyes, flawless skin, and unmoving face all evoke images of an untouchable, perfectly preserved perfection. The one exception is her hands, “with nails so yellow and cracked they were claws” and “skin so translucent you could see every ligament, every vein” (236): They are the giveaway to her true age and a symbol of her internal corruption.

In the narrative, Ms. Mauvais is the inverse of the trope of the misunderstanding adult in the ordinary world—in the secondary world, she fully acknowledges the child protagonists’ skills, but only because they are a threat to her and have obstructed her plans. Ms. Mauvais treats the child protagonists with full agency, but to their detriment. She imprisons Cass and Max-Ernest, and endangers them without concern for their personal safety or the fact that they are children. Although Ms. Mauvais treats them with full agency, and treats their skills and perspectives as valid, she is not a benign understanding adult figure because she treats them only as obstacles to her goals.

Dr. L is the other main antagonist in the novel; however, he has a double identity as Luciano Bergamo, twin brother of Pietro Bergamo, the magician. Luciano and Pietro were very close as children but were separated after an argument about entering into business with Ms. Mauvais/the Golden Lady. As a result, Ms. Mauvais stole Luciano away, and the two brothers never saw each other again. In the present day, Dr. L wears gray and silver and appears “so handsome that he seemed far away even when he was close” (75). He has one notable feature that confirms his identity as Luciano Bergamo: a crescent shaped birthmark on the back of his neck.

Dr. L seems completely committed to the mission of the Midnight Sun; he conducts the ritual on Benjamin without hesitation and assists Ms. Mauvais in capturing Cass and Max-Ernest and prying them for information. However, there is nuance to Dr. L’s character: Although he takes part in Ms. Mauvais’s schemes seemingly without qualms, Dr. L still cares for his brother, Pietro, and still harbors deep emotions and regret over the events of the past. When Cass intentionally puts the cotton candy Smoochie in front of him in Chapter 24, Dr. L gets emotional; he has tears in his eyes and inhales the cotton candy smell “as if he couldn’t bear to let the scent go” (250). The reader can infer that the scent recalls Dr. L’s memories of being at the circus with Pietro and that it’s something he’s still emotionally attached to. Furthermore, in Chapter 30, when Cass and Max-Ernest trick Dr. L into thinking his brother is sending a message with the Symphony of Smells, Dr. L completely abandons the ritual to search for Pietro, indicating the deep affection and loyalty he still feels for his brother. This lends Dr. L’s character some ambiguity; although the novel also depicts Dr. L as rageful, without regard for others, dedicated to the Secret, and willing to sacrifice children to get to it, these glimpses into his emotional side and apparent lingering attachment to Pietro suggest that perhaps his loyalties are not as ironclad as they appear to be and that perhaps Ms. Mauvais has been manipulating him ever since she kidnapped him all those years ago.

Within the narrative, the magician is something of an absent mentor; although he is not there to guide the protagonists, they are guided by the information they glean from his notebook, and his story gives Cass and Max-Ernest the insight they need to navigate the Secret world. In terms of adult-child interactions, Pietro represents the understanding adult perspective. He is the one to offer Cass and Max-Ernest full admission into the other world of secrets and danger, inviting them to join the Terces Society at the end of the novel. Pietro recognizes their unique talents and, in full respect and admiration of that, grants them full agency and standing in the secondary world.

Not much is known about Pietro beyond what is written in his notebook and what the young heroes can surmise about him. Cass thinks he was a “nice man” (67); this also reinforces his role as the understanding adult perspective. Pietro values his brother, Luciano, but stands opposed to him because of the Secret. As a member of the Terces Society, Pietro is dedicated to keeping the Secret away from the Midnight Sun. Although Luciano still appears to have deep feelings for Pietro, it’s unclear how Pietro feels about Luciano, especially since Luciano appears to be voluntarily working for the Midnight Sun.

The Narrator often breaks the fourth wall in the novel, taking on characterization of his own. The novel is framed as him addressing the reader in particular; he explicitly frames himself as the conveyor of the story, making himself as present in the narrative as Cass and Max-Ernest. This framing reinforces the book’s general mysteriousness and invites readers into the story as witnesses. The narrator’s role also structures and underpins the novel’s interactive elements, as he addresses the reader directly, implicating them as a participant in the story.

Although the reader knows nothing about the narrator’s identity, the narrator nonetheless develops a distinct personality and role. He is weak-willed; although he claims to want to protect the reader from the dangerous Secret, he cannot stop himself from writing all about it. In Chapter 17, he says that he’s “come to [his] senses” (170) and will stop the narrative for the reader’s own protection, but he ultimately accepts a “bribe” of high-quality chocolate to continue writing. However, since the reader has no way to give the narrator chocolate, this is more an excuse than anything else: The narrator promises himself that if he eats the chocolate, he’ll have to do something to deserve it, like continue writing against his better judgment. This shows that he is not particularly strong-willed and is less concerned with protecting the reader than he appears to be.

Benjamin Blake is an artist and a synesthete. He is also a misfit, though he is distanced from his peers to a degree even greater than Cass and Max-Ernest. He is constantly in a world of his own, considered to be “spacey” (47), and seems to have trouble communicating; he speaks in mumbles, and no one ever seems to understand what he’s saying. Misunderstanding is a focal point of how others perceive Benjamin. For Benjamin, with his “confusion of the senses,” his whole world is a jumble of sensation that makes sense only to him. He maps his world according to the associations he perceives between everything, but this makes little sense to outsiders; his art is not well-received by his peers, as to them it looks like a bunch of abstract nonsense: “None of the other students could believe it; judging by the artwork hanging in the school hallway, he couldn’t even draw a straight line” (47). Nonetheless, Benjamin wins many awards for his artwork and is treated as an art prodigy.

Benjamin Blake is introduced in Chapter 4, and the details surrounding his introduction and subsequent appearances foreshadow his significance later in the narrative. For example, he hears the oboe when Cass and Max-Ernest are trying out the Symphony of Smells, foreshadowing his role within the Secret/secondary world. Benjamin is always muttering something about chip ice cream, which is later revealed to be because he associates Cass with mint-chip ice cream. His appearance while Cass and Max-Ernest are looking through the Symphony of Smells places him in close proximity to the Secret world without actively participating in it; he seems to understand something about it that Cass and Max-Ernest don’t, which is because of his synesthesia. This foreshadows Benjamin’s involvement in the Secret world: Unlike Cass and Max-Ernest, he is part of it by virtue of his synesthesia. Hence, within the narrative Benjamin has a proximity/belonging to the secondary world that exceeds the protagonists’, but he is nevertheless distanced from because he is not actively involved in it.

Grandpa Larry and Grandpa Wayne are Cass’s “substitute grandfathers” (14), meaning that although they are not related to her biologically, they still fill that role in her life. Grandpa Larry and Grandpa Wayne live above an old fire station that they converted to an antiques store, though their love for their antiques prevents them from ever actually selling anything. Both Larry and Wayne love Cass very much and represent stability in her life; they also serve as a midpoint between the Secret world and the ordinary world. This is reinforced by the fire station/antiques store setting. As a store for antiques, the shop exists between past and present, but also between the Secret world and the ordinary one. As characters, Larry and Wayne challenge the trope of the narrow-minded adult perspective that cannot understand the child protagonist nor the world they inhabit; within the narrative, Larry and Wayne represent a midpoint between the misunderstanding adult locked out of the secondary world and the understanding one entrenched in it.

In addition, Larry and Wayne walk the line between dismissing Cass outright and giving her too much agency. They are the only two people in the world who take Cass’s disastrous predictions seriously, signaling that they are different from more authoritarian characters, that they can engage with the child protagonist on a more understanding level than the other adults. However, they are still constrained by their linear, adult logic, and Cass cannot completely confide in them. This is reinforced in Chapter 10, they “accuse” Cass of taking the Symphony of Smells. Although her grandfathers are not really accusing her, Cass still feels like they are because they do not believe her when she insists she didn’t do it. From the child protagonist’s perspective, this indicates that Larry and Wayne are not fully the kind of adults who can transcend the misunderstanding between child and adult. Nevertheless, they represent a happy medium between the two, as they do treat Cass and her differences with respect and validation, unlike other adult characters like Mrs. Johnson or Gloria Fortune.