The Family Remains

“Twenty-six years is long enough for memories to grow cobwebby, abstract. Twenty-six years is long enough to doubt your recollection of things, to wonder if things really did happen the way you think they happened. And in the house of horrors that Lucy, Henry, Clemency, and Phin were brought up in, the truth was constantly warped and distorted through the filters of their parents, the people who were supposed to care for them and protect them and the people who instead allowed them to suffer abuse and depravity.”

Jewell suggests that the passage of time can warp memories. This idea is presented again at the end of the novel, when Henry reveals that he recalibrated events from the past in his mind so that the facts are replaced with a new narrative. Jewell also presents the Lamb and Thomsen children as victims in this quote, highlighting that the people who were supposed to keep them safe were the very people who abused them.

“I am awash with emotion for which I have insufficient language. A churning in my soul of loss and emptiness and lack and incompleteness. I am incomplete. I have always felt incomplete.”

Henry’s reflections garner sympathy from the reader as Jewell reveals Henry’s internal struggle to find fulfillment. His emotions are human and relatable, and help the reader understand why Henry is obsessed with finding Phin: He believes Phin may hold the key to taking away his loneliness.

“His password is 0000. Can you even believe that? I mean, that’s, like, psychopathic.”

Alf’s observation foreshadows the sinister side of Henry. Although Henry hides it well, his trauma-derived obsessions add depth to his character and intrigue to the novel. Jewell uses foreshadowing like this to plant doubts in the reader’s mind about Henry’s motivations; Henry is poised between being well-adjusted and creepy in ways that make it hard to classify him as “good” or “evil.”