The Lock Artist

“In the end, all you could do was wish me well. You hoped that I had found a new life somewhere. You hoped that because I was so young, somehow this would have protected me, made it not so horrible. […] It’s what you hoped, anyway, if you even took the time to think about me the real person and not just the young face in the news story.”

This passage is from the opening of the novel, in which Mike directly addresses his audience, explaining his situation and his intention to recount his memories. This is the first allusion to Mike’s childhood trauma—the event that shaped his personality. It is an example of a strong feature of Mike’s personality, namely that he holds a cynical view of the motivations of all other people—anyone who has not lived through the trauma he has lived through. He believes these unscarred people are selfish and insincere in their interest in or care for him. This cynicism is particularly striking in this passage because it is a direct address in the second person.

“That’s a whole story in itself, of course. This thing that has kept me silent for all these years. Locked up here inside me, ever since that day. I cannot let go of it. So I cannot speak. I cannot make a sound.”

Again, Mike references his childhood trauma in the novel’s introduction. The most prominent post-traumatic symptom he exhibits is his muteness. The shock of the incident was so severe that he has not been able to speak of it or anything else since the event. This quotation also contains a first reference to a pervasive theme in the novel: the irony that Mike has this unspeakable pain “locked up inside” himself, but he possesses extraordinary skill in unlocking locks.