Content warning: This section of the guide discusses addiction, domestic violence, torture, and self-harm.

Margaret is the novel’s protagonist and narrator. She is an example of an unreliable narrator, a common figure within the psychological horror subgenre. Her narration is unreliable in part because she is in denial about her own actions. Her husband Hal, whom she claims is missing, is actually dead by her hand, his body hidden in the basement. The trauma of that experience was so great that Margaret is now unable to face the reality of her actions, and the story of Hal’s mysterious disappearance can be read as one of her many coping mechanisms. Margaret is characterized most overtly through her abusive relationship with Hal. She is a survivor of long-term domestic violence and has a large arsenal of coping mechanisms that have allowed her to endure her marriage and mitigate Hal’s emotional and physical violence toward their daughter, Katherine. Margaret tries her best not to provoke Hal, and she creates strict “rules” to placate him and manage his behavior. However, Margaret is also skilled at the art of denial. She often looks at the positive in a situation and tries her best to skip over the more troubling aspects of Hal’s

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