Beautiful Ugly

“My wife has been ‘missing’ for over a year but—according to the law—she cannot be presumed dead until seven years have passed. When other people lose a loved one there is a funeral or a service of some kind. But not for me. And not for Abby. The disappeared are not the same as the departed. People tell me I need to move on, but how can I? Without some form of closure I am trapped inside a sad and lonely limbo, desperate to know the truth but terrified of what it might be.”

Grady’s description of his grief initially casts him as a sympathetic character. As he rewrites what really happened to Abby, he convinces himself that he’s suffering. His first-person narration allows a deeper connection to the character, aiding in his desire to be the object of sympathy as he presents himself as the victim of tragedy rather than the perpetrator of violence.

“I have to stop doing this. I imagine seeing Abby everywhere. And I still think about her every day and every night; I don’t know how not to. I lie awake wondering if she is dead or whether she might be alive somewhere, living a life without me. If she is alive, I wonder where she is and if she misses me as much as I miss her. She is a wound that won’t heal.”

Grady’s inability to let go of Abby captures the complex nature of The Line Between Love and Obsession. His desperation to understand what happened to Abby appears like a manifestation of his love at the novel’s start. However, his inability to “heal” from the “wound” of Abby’s disappearance is a symptom of his guilt. The passage foreshadows coming revelations about Grady’s true crimes and delusions.

“I feel a strange sense of apprehension as I peer inside. Not just because of where I am, and the fact that Sandy mentioned nobody has lived here since Charles died, but also because of what I came here to do. What if I can’t write another novel? I don’t know how to do anything else.”

Grady’s response to Charles Whittaker’s cabin illustrates how seriously he takes his writing. Living in Charles’s old writing cabin surrounds him with reminders of Charles’s illustrious authorial legacy, undercutting his confidence and identity as a writer. The cabin contributes to The Psychological Effects of Isolation and will compromise Grady’s perception of reality throughout the novel because he willingly allows the place to ensnare him in his writing fantasies.

“Trapped. That’s what I am. The woman I have come to speak to calls me by my maiden name, and the sound of it surprises me. As though it is something I have forgotten. At work, I am a different version of myself—someone confident and well respected—but at home, I am just the wife. It’s like I am playing a role I didn’t audition for, but nobody tells you that the script of your life sometimes changes when you say ‘I do.’”

In this setting, Abby is compelled to open up about her true feelings, hurts, and needs for the first time, and she uses an honest, vulnerable tone to communicate her experiences to her therapist. Her narration is more reliable than Grady’s because she has someone to hold her accountable. Her first-person narration provides insight into her character and counters Grady’s depictions of reality.

“I’m already worried that the whole island will think I am crazy. I remember that I haven’t slept for a very long time. Maybe my mind is just getting more creative with the tricks it insists on playing on me. I’ve imagined seeing my missing wife before, maybe now I’m starting to hear her.”

Grady tries to dismiss the psychological effects of isolation, avoiding the truth about his instability. He knows that he isn’t taking care of himself and that the islanders are scrutinizing his increasingly strange behavior. Despite his self-awareness, he does little to amend his behavior. The passage heightens the interplay between reality and fiction and shows how Grady’s authorial work is estranging him from what’s true.

“Island life is stranger than I imagined. So are the people I’ve met so far. But maybe this level of isolation does that to a person? There are no phones, no internet, no social media, no news apps, no cinemas, no museums, no art galleries…being this cut off from society and culture must have an impact. Either way, at least they seem friendly enough. Sort of.”

The Isle of Amberly setting creates an ominous mood, a hallmark of the genre. Grady is cut off from the society he once knew in London. He is in a remote location without access to information and with few communication or transportation options. These facets of island life intensify the narrative atmosphere and foreshadow Grady’s fate at the novel’s end.

“All I can think about is Charles Whittaker’s manuscript, which I left on the desk. Whatever happens, Sandy cannot see that. Nobody can. The letter I sent to Kitty was a proposal for a similar story. A very similar story. I’m obviously not going to copy it word for word—Charles had an extremely distinctive voice—so I need to edit the book. Make it my own.”

Grady is challenged by the moral dilemma of finding the manuscript. This is a trope of the psychological thriller genre that casts doubt on who Grady is. While he needs to write a new book to save his career and allegedly heal from his grief, he is willing to steal another author’s work to do so. His desperation to hide the manuscript from Sandy shows that he knows what he’s doing is wrong but is willing to commit this crime out of self-interest.

“Sometimes I can’t form proper sentences anymore; I literally can’t find the words, which is a bit of a problem for a writer. I’ve read that long-term insomnia can cause hallucinations and paranoia, and I’m starting to wonder if that’s what is happening to me now.”

Grady’s compromised perspective blurs the narrative parameters between reality and fiction. Grady is so consumed by his writing project that he can’t sleep; his sleeplessness in turn causes “hallucinations and paranoia” which distort Grady’s behavior, his perspective on what he is really experiencing, and how reliable his narration is.

“And while I am grateful for all the good things in my life, I’m not happy. And I have to do something to change that. Even if it means leaving my husband. Our lives are so tangled up in each other and that isn’t an easy thing to unpick. I don’t want to hurt him, but I need to fix me. The only way I can have a new life is to leave the old one behind.”

Abby’s resolved tone conveys her strength of character, while her straightforward assessment of her situation inspires confidence in her perspective. She cares about her husband and doesn’t “want to hurt him,” but also knows that she is the only one who can take care of her. Her decision to start “a new life” makes her a foil for Grady’s character. While Grady repeats the same destructive behaviors to try to remake his life, Abby reinvents herself by making new choices, pursuing new relationships, and establishing new habits.

“But I don’t want a child. I’ve been honest about that since we met, long before we got married. Think about the world we live in. Humanity is broken, you write about that fact every day, why would you want to bring a child into this world? Children are expensive and high-maintenance and they don’t come with an off switch. None of our friends with kids are happy and they all look permanently exhausted.”

Grady monologues to Abby about all of the reasons not to have children because he’s resistant to making space for Abby’s point of view. He doesn’t ask Abby questions about how she feels and what she wants but instead lists all of the reasons why her desire “to bring a child into this world” is wrong. His perspective and tone erase Abby’s experience and intensify her entrapment in their marriage.

“I’m finally writing again and it feels good. But I still can’t sleep for more than a few hours—despite drinking gallons of Cora’s bog myrtle tea, which is surprisingly delicious—and there are permanent dark shadows beneath my eyes. I write all day and almost all night, every night, and it feels stupidly brilliant. Sometimes I feel so exhausted I think I might fall over, so I sit back down at my desk and write some more.”

Grady’s detailed description of his time in the cabin highlights his willful ignorance. He acknowledges that he “can’t sleep” and has “permanent dark shadows beneath [his] eyes,” but insists that he “feels good.” He casts his experience as “surprisingly delicious” and “stupidly brilliant,” descriptors that underscore his delusion in light of his isolated, unhealthy circumstances.

“I didn’t want to sound rude in front of Sandy. She clearly loves Amberly and it’s been her home all her life, but it isn’t mine. This place has been good for me in lots of ways, but the people here are a bit strange and there are things I miss about London. Things I didn’t think I would. And for reasons I don’t understand, this island seems determined to make me think about my wife even more than I did before.”

Grady’s assessment of the Isle of Amberly conveys his inability to perceive the island’s true significance. He fails to recognize that the island is a sacred refuge for “the people here” and instead pines for his life in London. He also acknowledges that he’s been thinking about Abby on the island “more than [he] did before” but fails to consider why. His dichotomous thought processes about the island underscore his self-involvement and foreshadow how the setting and its inhabitants will ultimately affect him.

“I wish I had someone to celebrate with. Women used to flirt with me a lot more than they do now. They flirted with me when I was young, because everyone flirts when they are young. Then they flirted with me when I was borderline old because they thought I was successful. Now that I am neither young nor successful, flirting is an endangered species in my world.”

Grady’s reflective state of mind captures his true motivations as a writer. He isn’t simply upset that he can’t write a novel because he needs the money. Rather, he feels deflated in the narrative present because he’s “neither young nor successful” any longer. He wants “someone to celebrate with” after he finishes his draft but doesn’t care who it is. He doesn’t mention Abby in this passage, revealing how incapable he was of seeing her as a distinct individual—rather than just a young and beautiful woman who showed interest in him.

“He let me read everything he wrote, all of it. There were some books he decided never to publish, and one which I’m sure he should have. The famous Book Ten. I read a first draft and it was brilliant but nobody could find the manuscript after he died.”

Sandy’s revelation about her relationship with Charles disrupts Grady’s peace of mind. This scene of dialogue intensifies the novel’s atmosphere and Grady’s already morally ambiguous decisions. Sandy’s words foreshadow the repercussions of Grady’s dishonesty, theft, and deception.

“I stare at her and wonder if this is my fault, whether I might have fallen asleep at the wheel. I think I was reaching for the radio when it happened, but I’m so tired I’m not sure. Either way, I’m to blame for this. My mind is already editing the moment, rewriting what happened, trying to relieve the overwhelming stress of what I think I am seeing.”

Grady’s response to finding Abby on the island road foreshadows the plot twist about his crime. He is in shock when he sees Abby and immediately begins “editing the moment” to write a more palatable version of events. His strategy echoes the way he dealt with his attempted murder of Abby: He wrote a new version of the story to quell his guilt and avoid taking responsibility for his crime. His life as a writer thus heightens the interplay between reality and fiction.

“I’ve accepted that I can’t change the world, but I do believe that uniqueness is something to be celebrated, not feared or frowned upon. Life is beautiful and life is ugly and we have to learn to live with both sides of that same coin and see the light in the darkness. The world is Beautiful Ugly, relationships are Beautiful Ugly, love is Beautiful Ugly. Understanding that makes life easier to live with.”

The way Abby describes her inspiration behind the Beautiful Ugly pottery shop provides insight into the novel’s title. Abby sees the world as a place of both joy and sadness, love and obsession. Her ability to accept this dichotomy allows her to live more holistically. The novel similarly contains both horrific and redemptive elements that convey the often dichotomous nature of life and the human experience.

“‘I promise,’ he said, then he kissed me. A week later I overheard the builders laughing about how he had told them to throw everything they found in the trash and not tell me. My husband didn’t believe in curses, but I did. I still do.”

Abby relays what happened with the remnants of the buried lovers ritual to her therapist, and Grady’s betrayal captures his untrustworthy nature. The incident encapsulates her relationship with Grady—namely his incapacity for empathy and deceptive tendencies. Her revelation shifts Grady’s character development, highlighting his narrative unreliability and moral duplicity.

“I am trapped on this island in so many ways […] My options seem to be growing smaller every day and it feels like the walls of my world are closing in. I remind myself that what happened was only a dream. Nobody was really hiding under the bed. And nobody knows about Charles Whittaker’s book, or what I’ve done. Nobody knows except me.”

Grady tries to comfort himself with his delusions. He uses anaphora—repeatedly starting his sentences with the word “nobody”—because he’s trying to convince himself that his version of reality is true. As long as he can live in these self-deceptions, he can feel safe, despite the overt evidence that he is “trapped on this island.”

“I should be a better person but there are some things it is too late for me to succeed at. I have always hidden my fears and myself inside my books rather than face facts or confront reality. Well, not this time. I’m going to find out the truth and nothing is going to slow me down or get in my way.”

The interplay between reality and fiction becomes more pronounced the more desperate Grady’s character becomes. He doesn’t care that he hasn’t become “a better person” since Abby’s disappearance, because he only cares about his version of reality. He’s vowing to “face facts” and “confront reality,” but to Grady, this simply means seeking out evidence for the things he already believes are true.

“He’s become distracted and distant, a little more forgetful than he used to be. It’s funny really; he worries far more about his work than he does about his marriage. I honestly don’t know whether he is expecting this or whether it will come as a complete surprise.”

The way that Abby describes Grady reiterates the negative psychological effects of isolation. Grady has isolated himself from his wife and isolated Abby in their marriage. He has chosen to disappear into “his work” at the expense of “his marriage.” Abby’s point of view on their relationship intimates that Grady is unreliable, untrustworthy, and oblivious.

“How could you possibly know that there’s a family emergency on the mainland when there are no phones on the island and no internet? I’d know if you’d received anything in the post and you haven’t, nothing for weeks except a couple of letters from your agent. Nobody misses you, nobody cares, nobody even knows that you’re here. There is no family emergency because you don’t have any family.”

Cora Christie’s tone and disrespect when she addresses Grady as he asks to leave the island for “a family emergency” creates an ominous, foreboding mood. Cora reminds Grady how alone he truly is and therefore how powerless he has become. She also reminds him that she has access to information that Grady doesn’t, which augments his helplessness and foreshadows his fate at the islanders’ hands.

“Someone who loved me could never do what you did. I know what happened that night, you know what happened, everyone on this island knows what you did to me. What I want to know is why. I’ve waited a long time to ask that question, face-to-face, and I think I deserve an answer. I wanted to wait until you lost everything; the house, your career, everything you ever cared about, because that’s what you took from me when you did what you did that night.”

Abby employs a direct, unemotional tone when confronting Grady about his crime. She avoids getting upset because she is a levelheaded character who prioritizes the truth over happy fairy stories. Her lines of dialogue reinforce her relationship with truth and reality and upset the previous power dynamic between her and Grady. She is forcing Grady to confront what he has been avoiding and has taken control of the conversation.

“Abby is happy here, Grady. It’s her home again now. And it could be yours too, but only if you can carry on writing books I can sell. The island needs an income or they’ll have to open to tourists all year long, and nobody wants that. Can you do it?”

Grady agrees to become the island’s resident writer because he thinks he is doing Kitty Goldman and the islanders a favor. The women let Grady believe that he will be saving the Isle of Amberly by providing the residents “an income.” For this reason, Grady fails to regard his fate there as a punishment for his crimes. Kitty can easily manipulate him because Grady is a static character incapable of true self-reflection or change.