Book Club for Introverts discussion

Here's the place to talk about chapters 19-21. Please don't spoil it for others; if you want to talk about something in a later chapter, I'll be posting topics for the other chapters as well.

Frances compares the spyhole in her prison door to the Judas hole in her bathroom st Lyntons. She says “I think it’s better to know when someone is watching rather than to live your life under an invisible gaze.”

Frances reveals that she had an agenda in court. The letter they read is not what it seems. She doesn’t explain that it’s an apology for giving her too much alcohol and advice to take it easy to ease the hangover. She lets them assume the worst. Why? Does she want to be convicted? Does she feel the need to be punished?

Peter gives Franny a cigarette case with an inscription. “Love, P.” It’s funny that she did not smoke before she met them and now she has a case and is constantly smoking. Cara is jealous.

Frances watches Peter masturbate and fantasizes “I was convinced that somehow he knew I was there and that he was telling me, in the only way he could, that it would be different with me. And I understood that he loved me and that he knew I loved him back.”

Frances has a dream. What does it mean? White cow, oranges, Woman’s Way, picture of Mallory. Why does she replace Cara in the water? She of course wants to replace her with Peter. She implies that she pushed the baby to safety unlike what Cara did letting him drown.

Frances actively participates in the thievery by taking things to her room; paper, envelopes, a chest of drawers.

She is still torn between her new life and doing the right thing. She starts to write Lieberman a letter but then realizes she’s complicit and that she will surely lose Peter if she does so she burns the letter.

Victor comes for a visit. He is trying to be a good friend. But is needy. Frances does not appreciate his gestures. She sees him as flawed as well.

Cara and Peter fight about Frances and the gift of the cigarette case.

Cara says “we weren’t talking about you Frances...you aren’t that interesting.”

Frances hears things in her bathroom again. Peter does not believe her.

Frances admits she’s always believed things people say. “The world is a nicer place when you think everyone is telling the truth. There are no agendas, no hidden motives; no one lies for dramatic effect.”

She realized that the law “is about who can tell the most convincing story. If you want to win, even if to everyone else it looks as though you have lost.”

She realized Cara was controlling her by providing the source of sustenance. She was hungry-she had to rely on Cara to be fed.

She also got angry. “A few weeks ago I had chased off the little voice of insecurity and now I didn’t want it to climb back up to my shoulder.”

They have a picnic on the roof and she admits she does not miss her invalid, older mother. “It’s good she’s dead.”

She feels Cara understands her. “...staring at me until it seemed that her eyes had pierced me: a thousand pinholes letting in the light, exposing everything.”

Cara stands on the edge of the roof as if she’s going to jump.

“We were all standing on the edge that day, at the very rim of the precipice, staring into the void. Something inside us wanted to see what it would be like to jump, just to find out what would happen, an actual physical lurch that seemed so possible, except we all knew that once we had jumped there would be no way back.

“I had thought I would like living life to the maximum, I had thought I would enjoy being unconstrained and reckless, but I learned that it is terrifying to look into the abyss.”

I too often wonder what it’s like to be like those who live life seemingly recklessly... drinking to excess, hanging out with lots of friends, living their lives in the open. I’ve never been able to pull it off. It seems forced and I’m always worried things won’t work out, the party won’t be fun. I over plan and don’t fully enjoy myself anxious that people aren’t having fun.

Frances resents that Victor came to check on her. She didn’t think she needed him.

The prison reveal, Peter and Cara’s arguments (and overheard comments) and Victor’s part in all of this....really making me read on.

Is everything not as it seems to the reader or has Frances made all this up in her head. She’s delusional about Peter’s love for her and forgave both of them rather easily for the comments she overheard.

Apart from getting all the goodies the museum, I still can’t figure out Cara and Peter’s what motives for fooling Franny would be.

Does Victor have feelings for Franny?

I’ve got only 84 pages to go, excited to read the rest ☺️