Tell No One

“There are misfortunes we almost expect in life—what happened to my parents, for example—and then there are other dark moments, moments of sudden violence, that alter everything.” 

Coben opens his novel with the dramatic generalization that life can change from moment to moment. His first-person narrator draws the distinction between accidental yet expected misfortune and the kind of deliberate violence that can ruin a life. This sets an ominous tone for the ensuing violence in the plot. 

“I heard Elizabeth scream again—she screamed my name this time—but the sound, all sound, gurgled away as I sank under the water.” 

David’s sinking under the water is a pathetic fallacy, which expresses his helplessness as he loses Elizabeth. The urgency of the scream is juxtaposed with the gurgling sounds of the water and indicates that events will spiral wildly out of David’s control. 

“Every one of those platitudes pissed me off. They made me—and this is going to sound uncharitable—stare at the idiot and wonder why he or she breathed while my Elizabeth rotted.”

David expresses his aversion to the platitudes offered to him after Elizabeth’s death, regarding his good luck to have known such a love. This quote indicates how he loves Elizabeth more than anyone else in the world and how depressed and bereaved he feels without her.