The Last to Vanish

Abby serves as the novel’s narrator and protagonist. She assists in developing all the novel’s central themes. Abby reveals her personal history slowly, saving vital information about her connection to the town of Cutter’s Pass for the novel’s conclusion. Abby begins the novel as a self-proclaimed outsider, exhibiting a strong desire to connect with the insiders in town more meaningfully. As the novel’s events unfold, and Abby learns more about the people who have disappeared from Cutter’s Pass, she realizes she serves as the connecting factor between the outsiders and insiders of the town and is the only person poised to solve the mysteries behind all seven missing persons cases. Abby realizes, “Ten years, and I’d given up hope that there was anything here to find. I’d been right at the center, all along” (289). Abby reveals Harris as unremorsefully responsible for Landon, Farrah, and Alice’s disappearances. However, she protects the people of Cutter’s Pass by destroying evidence that would expose Celeste and Patrick as partially responsible for the death and disappearance of the Fraternity Four. How Abby handles Celeste’s crimes versus Harris’s demonstrates How Secrets Connect and Divide Small Communities. Abby’s decision to expose Harris as the culprit of the more recent murders while maintaining the town’s secrets concerning the original Fraternity Four solidifies her position as an insider and one of the town’s central figures at the novel’s close.