The Perfect Son

Content Warning: The source text includes references to physical assault, psychological manipulation, child abuse, and animal abuse. Additionally, the source material uses offensive terms for mental health conditions throughout, which are replicated in this guide only in direct quotes of the source material.

The domestic thriller—sometimes called the “domestic noir” or “mommy thriller”—is a popular and fast-growing subgenre of the thriller genre. Instead of focusing on supernatural or outlandish violence, domestic thrillers focus on the horrors within the domestic sphere that can happen to everyday people and families. In The Perfect Son, Erika spends a great deal of time balancing her unusual circumstances against the demands of typical family and social demands, such as attending PTA meetings and debate competitions or making breakfast. Often, these thrillers focus on violence within families and tight-knit communities, and “are played out in familiar environments with characters and threads that make the stories relatable even when reaching into the darkest recesses most stories of such environments hide or gloss over” (Moore, K. “What Is a Domestic Thriller?” Mystery and Suspense Magazine, 2020). This relatability, critics assert, makes the story feel more believable, allowing readers to imagine the events of the story in their own lives.