Our Souls At Night

Addie Moore is a 70-year-old widow and grandmother. Louis describes her as a “good-looking woman […]. She’d had dark hair when she was younger, but it was white now and cut short” (4). He also remarks upon her courage, not just in making her bold proposal to him but in how she managed her life after her husband Carl’s death. While Louis is initially worried about what their neighbors might think about their nightly arrangement, Addie is not, because she has decided to not let other people dictate her life choices. She asserts: “I made up my mind I’m not going to pay attention to what people think. I’ve done that too long—all my life. I’m not going to live that way anymore” (8). To demonstrate this, she wears a bright, bare-backed dress when she and Louis walk down Main Street together to have lunch.

In Addie’s earlier life, she had to hide or subvert her desires for the sake of her family. When young Gene showed no interest in the trips she planned with him to Denver, she kept going on her own. These excursions—often involving concerts, stays in a posh hotel, and stylish clothing she wore only in the city—were not mere indulgences for her; they were an escape from the grief of losing her daughter and the emotional estrangement she experienced at home from her husband and son. At the start of the novel, she tells Louis she is tired of being lonely and denying herself pleasant companionship just because society would consider her choices unconventional. As her relationship with Louis progresses, she revels in not just the emotional intimacy but in the simple joys of physicality: handholding, hiking and camping with Louis and Jamie, swimming naked in a creek, and making love with Louis. She tells him, “I do love this physical world. […] And the air and the country. The backyard, the gravel in the back alley. The grass. The cool nights. Lying in bed talking with you in the dark” (129). As she ages, she is expanding her exposure to the world and nature, soaking in the pleasures her body can still give her.  

Though Addie’s pursuit of simple pleasures drives the plot in this novel, she is also its emotional center. Addie is not only brave but also kind and generous. She regularly assists her elderly neighbor Ruth with grocery shopping and helps Gene out financially as much as she can. She does not balk at having Jamie stay with her over the summer, seeing it as an opportunity to develop a relationship with him. It is that relationship with her grandson, ultimately, that forces her to end things with Louis. Addie believes it is very important to build connections with people, check in on them regularly—she even visited Louis’s wife Diane when she was dying—and help those who need it. She feels this deeply because she experienced The Pain of Loneliness after Carl’s death, and well-meaning people like Louis stayed away, not wanting to be intrusive. Her philosophy is that it is better to make the attempt to connect with people and be told off than to leave the person wallowing and alone. This concept informs her bravery in approaching Louis the first time. She explains, “[If] it didn’t work I’d be no worse off. Except for the humiliation of being turned down” (146). That, to her, is a risk worth taking.

Gene Moore is Addie’s son. He insists that his mother end her relationship with Louis, even threatening to cut her off from her grandson if she doesn’t comply. Though he plays the role of the villain in this novel, he is not entirely unsympathetic. The accidental death of his sister Connie when he was just a child informs much of his character. Addie describes him to Louis as “too controlling, too protective” (63). This is because on some level he still feels that the accident that killed Connie was his fault because he had been chasing his sister when she’d run out onto the street and met with an accident. Gene’s need for control, which is driven by his lingering insecurity and fear of losing those he loves, has driven his wife Beverly away. He shows this overprotectiveness with his own son when he states that being exposed to Louis’s and Addie’s sleeping arrangements will harm the boy and when he warns Jamie about going near the street with the dog.

Addie fears that Gene is replicating with Jamie the relationship he had with Carl. Gene needed Carl’s love, especially right after Connie’s death, but Carl had shut down and pushed his son away. Addie tells Louis, “He didn’t pay as much attention to Gene after that and when he did it was often critical, to correct him” (110). Carl died before he and Gene could resolve these old issues, so Gene’s anger and resentment have lingered over the years and showing up in his relationships with his mother, wife, and child.

Gene’s furniture business, too, is failing, and he needs to find a new job or some source of income to support his family. This is why he is keen to keep Addie’s financial support, which he has had in the past. When Louis suggests that maybe this downturn is actually an opportunity for Gene to try something new, as “[h]e’s not the salesman type” (63), Addie responds that Gene won’t see it that way, explaining, “He’s got his life all screwed down tight. Now he needs help and [she’s] sure he hates it. He’s got a bad temper and it comes out at times like this. […] and he resents having to ask [her] for anything” (64). Gene worries that Louis is after his mother’s money, and since he so desperately needs it himself, he becomes even more agitated about Addie’s relationship. Gene feels his life is spiraling out of his control, so he clamps down hard on the one thing he can control, which in this case is Addie’s access to Jamie.