The Night She Disappeared

“And now, as the sun shines down through the tops of the towering trees, splashing dapples onto the dark fabric of her dress and the ground beneath her feet, Sophie starts to feel the beginning of happiness, a sense that this decision, borne of pragmatism might, in fact, have been some kind of magical act of destiny unfurling that they were meant to be here, that this will be good for her, good for both of them.”

This long sentence reveals the irony of this moment of joy: Soon, Sophie will realize that her move to the country was a mistake. Here, Sophie reacts happily because the beautiful trees inspire her, but her assessment relies on the idea that something that’s “good” for someone will necessarily make them happy—something that the novel undercuts (for instance, Scarlett’s family thought Liam might be good for her). Coming directly after Sophie lists everything she has given up, this line has the feel of someone trying to convince themselves they’ve done the right thing.

“As she passes Tallulah, she narrows her eyes again, and Tallulah imagines for a split second that she sees a smile pass across her face.”

Tallulah is acutely aware of Scarlett. They dance around each other, staring. Tallulah is taken by Scarlett’s gaze—there’s a dawning tension between the two young women encapsulated in this look. Tallulah feels seen by Scarlett, and this builds her sexual interest in her.

“I didn’t get into any of the good colleges anyway, not because I’m not good at art, but just because I didn’t do the work I needed to do, story of my life and yeah. Here I am.”

Scarlett is extremely self-aware, a personality trait that makes it all the harder to let her off the hook for her eventual confession at the end of the novel. Here she explains why she isn’t at a better art school: After lots of excuses, she makes the pronouncement that she simply doesn’t meet goals and doesn’t strive for things. Life has always come easy to the extremely rich Scarlett, so she doesn’t feel the same kind of motivation that others do.

“The only thing she is sure of is that Tallulah would never leave Noah deliberately and that something terrible must have happened to her.”

Kim fears that her daughter is gone only hours after she was supposed to return. This tells us is that Tallulah is a responsible person and a good mom; it is uncharacteristic of her to be even this mildly late. This characteristic stands in sharp contrast to Scarlett, who revealed the opposite predilection in her own life.

“How might a rejection of his marriage proposal have triggered that temper? How might he have responded?”

At first, Kim encourages Tallulah to be with Zach; though she sees Tallulah’s reticence, she doesn’t internalize it. She wants Tallulah to have a partner and she wants her grandson to have a dad. But as the story progresses, Kim becomes concerned about the way Zach treats Tallulah, shifting to believing that Zach might be responsible for her disappearance. This introduces one of the novel’s key red herrings—where Jewell suggests a probable, but wrong, explanation for the disappearance to distract the reader from the mystery’s true solution.

“They’re like a music video or a movie trailer for a really cool movie. They’re a billboard poster for a hip clothing brand. Within the tiny fishbowl environs of Manton College, they’re basically celebrities.”

Tallulah watches the cool group (which Scarlett leads) with awe and dislike. Tallulah’s obsession with Scarlett begins to gain momentum, signaling Scarlett’s importance to the mystery.

“[Tallulah feels like she] doesn’t have a care in the world and there’s no baby at home, no put-upon mother who should be out at a party herself tonight, no ex-boyfriend loitering in the wings trying to woo her back, just her, eighteen years old […] the coolest girl in the world holding her hands above her head and grinning at her.”

As Tallulah dances with Scarlett, she feels free, reminded of a time before responsibility and motherhood. In this moment, Tallulah equates Scarlett with escape from Zach and from premature maturity.

“She’s pretty sure that a girl like Scarlett would actually think it was quite cool that she had a baby, and she was only eighteen.”

Tallulah is afraid to tell Scarlett that she has an infant son. But she guesses correctly when she thinks Scarlett would think it’s cool she has a baby. This moment foreshadows the fact that Scarlett’s fascination with Tallulah’s motherhood cements her attraction to Tallulah.

“Kim turns then and heads to her car, shaking her head almost imperceptibly as she walks, her eyes closing against the impossibility of understanding how a mother and a grandmother could have so little engagement with their roles.”

Kim now firmly understands that Tallulah never wanted Zach in her life. Now, she also reads his mother’s indifference to his disappearance as evidence that his mother is hiding him. The novel’s description of Megs helps explain Zach’s abusive personality: His violent temperament might come from her neglect.

“When you spend all day giving yourself to another human being the last thing you want at the end of the day is a grown man wanting you to give him things too.”

The novel touches on feminism in its consideration of the demands put on women: how hard it is to be a mother, a partner, and a worker. Kim finally sees why Tallulah might not be interested in a romantic relationship with Zach.

“Having a baby had changed her; it had changed everything about her. Leaving school had changed her again. Being single after three years in a couple had changed her. She wasn’t the soft, romantic girl she’d been before she got pregnant.”

Tallulah’s discontent stems from the fact that having a baby young has totally transformed her life, changing her from a free-spirited teen to a busy, overwhelmed mom. When Tallulah articulates this, she also makes herself vulnerable to the kind of excitement that Scarlett represents.

“Kim blinks slowly. Mimi’s words slot into the space in her head where her own misgivings have been gestating, the place where she wonders how Zach might have reacted to a rejection.”

The repetition of the idea that Zach is responsible for Tallulah’s disappearance is important: It draws attention to Zach’s abuse and continues to distract readers from the real perpetrator. As Kim now realizes, Zach does have the capacity to hurt her daughter.

“She hadn’t missed out on anything; there was always food and holidays abroad and shopping trips to Oxford Street and takeaways on Friday nights; there was always enough of everything. Her life was perfect. But it was matte, not gloss.”

Each of the three narrators has challenges. Sophie’s conflict is clearly less dramatic that those of Kim and Tallulah, but it does provide insight into why she is so willing to get lost in a year-old mystery instead of developing her own life in the country. Sophie is fooling herself: Her life is not as perfect as she claims it is.

“If Megs was lying to protect her son or the person responsible for her son’s disappearance, she would surely at least pretend to be worried. But her reaction to this is too authentic, too real, too Megs.”

Megs is an interesting ancillary character who provides an explanation for Zach’s violent behavior and functions as a bad-mom foil to Kim. Megs’s parenting diminishes Kim’s flaws (ignoring how unhappy her daughter was with Zach).

“Days that once felt piquant with possibility now feel flat and muffled and Tallulah becomes once again the studious teen mum with a weight on her shoulders.”

Tallulah deflates when Scarlett quits college, unable to find her way through it because the lure of Scarlett stands in the way of clear thinking. The emotional roller coaster ride of being with Scarlett explains why Tallulah would give up everything: She sees Scarlett as the only way out of her dull life.

“Tallulah stares from the window, rubbing the soft skin on her forearms, still smarting from Zach’s grip.”

This is the first time Zach hurts Tallulah physically. He has always been a menacing presence, but now his insecurity intensifies to the point of exerting his physical strength over Tallulah.

“And as she says these words, Tallulah feels something bubble up inside her, something hot and liquid and raw and red and it rushes from her groin through her heart to her limbs and jumps to her feet and she strides toward Scarlett and she straddles her with her bare legs against hers, and she kisses her.”

Tallulah remembers impulsively kissing Scarlett as the one time in her life that she did something daring and risky. This solidifies Tallulah’s desire for freedom, even if she isn’t sure what she will give up to get it. This also the moment when Scarlett wins her game of manipulating Tallulah.

“The whole family felt like this group of ice floes, just sort of drifting about, never touching.”

Sophie is the most introspective of the three narrators. She isn’t consumed by fear, as Kim is, and she isn’t in the path of harm like Tallulah. What her story lacks in high drama, it makes up for in the way she incisively observes the world and people around her. Here, as Jacinta explains Scarlett and her family, Sophie absorbs the information in a way that will lead her to uncover the clues to Tallulah’s disappearance.

“They rushed into this in a flurry of sex and summer and the romantic notion of the English countryside and manicured grounds and foreign princesses and now they are floundering.”

Sophie sometimes lies to herself about her situation, but she grows less and less afraid to face the truth. Sophie’s steadfastness eventually helps her look at her problems head on.

“Sophie thinks briefly of telling Kim about the passage in her own book that someone seems to be copycatting, the book that Liam Bailey brought into her home yesterday, tap-tapping its spine against the palm of his hand in a way that now feels vaguely sinister, but decides against it.”

Sophie is too caring and considerate to reveal everything she knows to Kim, worried about Kim’s reaction. Sophie is also incredibly astute and insightful. She quickly understands that Liam is tapping on the book spine to get her attention—though readers may think Liam’s reticence has something to do with the disappearance, Sophie pieces together that he is indicating that the idea for the “Dig Here” sign came from her novel.

“And he knew and I knew it but neither of us acknowledged it. And I never saw him again.”

Scarlett never fully tells Tallulah that she was raped, euphemizing and talking around the act instead. Scarlett’s way of dealing with trauma is to ignore and deny that it happened—something she acknowledges later—so the easiest way to deal with Guy’s assault and subsequent murder is to never fully speak the events aloud. This coping strategy will later enable Scarlett to countenance her mother kidnapping and imprisoning Tallulah for a year.

“She narrows her eyes to make sense of it and sees that it is a rather jumbled painting of what appears to be a young woman sitting on a throne with a dog by her side, and then the pieces fall into place.”

Scarlett’s paintings reveal character and offer clues to the mystery, depicting something of what happened to Tallulah and Zach.

“A mission to unnerve her, to undermine her, to catch her out somehow.”

Tallulah is surrounded by manipulative romantic partners: Scarlett plays with her feelings, and here, Zach acts a part that corners Tallulah. As Zach takes drugs and drinks with Scarlett, Tallulah realizes that she is helplessly caught between them.