The Rachel Incident

Content Warning: This section of the guide briefly mentions abortion and anti-gay bias.

The central relationship of The Rachel Incident is Rachel and James Devlin’s friendship. Their bond anchors the two characters through all the growing pains of their twenties and thirties: breakups, career changes, a miscarriage, and coming out. Though both experience romantic love with other people, the platonic love between them is deep and abiding. Rachel borrows the language of romance, describing their initial bonding as “falling in love” (26). Like a youthful crush, their chemistry is near-instantaneous. Rachel’s college boyfriend, Jonathan, is dismissive of her bond with James because he assumes James is gay and not a threat to the dating relationship. Ironically, James does “steal” Rachel, though not due to romance: “I would be colonised by James on a molecular level, and my personality would mould around his wherever there was space to do so. The official line is that Jonathan dumped me. The truth is that I left him for another man” (16). Inside their tight-knit friendship, the two of them become what Rachel calls “the James and Rachel show” (79). Her later relationship with James Carey is plagued by jealousy over which James is more important.