Mary

Content Warning: This section discusses sexual assault, child abuse, violence, and murder. Stigmatizing language about mental health is reproduced in quotations only.

The novel’s main sources of shock are Mary supernatural and societal experiences as a woman. Much of the novel’s horror comes not from people being murdered but from the frailties of middle-aged female bodies. Mary is tormented by vivid hallucinations whenever she looks at herself or other women: “My flesh sags, crumbles, oozes in clotty, rancid rivulets. My lower lip pulls down, revealing black gums and gravestone teeth. Like a corpse left to rot in the desert sun. […] Kill rip tear peel useless mother motherf—” (19). The imagery creates terror in two ways. Most obviously, it is disturbing and alienating for Mary to see bodies as the site of such destruction. More insidiously, she is forced to hear the way Damon views middle-aged women and the things he would like to do to erase them from the world. However, because it is not yet clear that this inner monologue is generated by a murderer, the text implies that Mary has internalized this misogyny from patriarchal messaging.

The world around Mary contributes to her feelings of worthlessness and insignificance, as the societal implications of being middle-aged also make Mary feel invisible. Male doctors always assume that her symptoms are caused by perimenopause—a diminishing and wrong supposition that is based on the mistaken idea that women are solely the sum of their reproductive parts. This aspect of the novel relies on the fact that male practitioners of Western medicine have a long history of ignoring and dismissing women, often with deadly results. she is often overlooked by other people, so much so that her boss takes weeks to fire her because he keeps simply forgetting about her.

Eventually, however, Mary and the middle-aged women victims of Damon Cross leverage this invisibility to their advantage. Turned into vengeful Furies after death, these women have power over who gets to see them, revealing themselves only to those they choose. They force Mary to see them, both to make Damon see what he did to them through her eyes and also because Mary has the ability to give them the undivided attention that fuels their strength. Eventually, the Furies come to see Mary as a fellow invisible woman and seek comfort and solace in her. Mary finds the Furies inspiring:

It’s not that they’re not beautiful—my God, they are—but that word has too much baggage. It’s an outsider’s word and it was weaponized to render these women invisible in the first place. They are full of so much more than beauty. I tell them they’re amazing. Powerful. I tell them they’re here. I will learn all their names in time (360).

By making these women feel seen as individuals and as a force to be reckoned with, Mary empowers them to enact violent revenge on the Arroyo cult. As a result, their middle-aged female bodies become the site not of helpless ruin but of agency and justice.