The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair

The narrative structure of Joël Dicker’s novel is formally complex, as it introduces multiple spatial and temporal planes as part of its setting. The opening pages offer a combination of dialogue and third-person narration telling of the disappearance of Nola Kellergan in 1975, while the Prologue picks up the action 33 years later, and in first-person narration, from the perspective of the protagonist, the young and successful writer Marcus Goldberg. In this way, the author achieves several goals in a limited space. He gives us the starting premise of the novel, which revolves around not just Nola’s disappearance, but more significantly her character and her short life, and he introduces the main character, whose distanced point of view, both in time and in space, will become one of the focal points for understanding the events of the past and the present.

The author numbers the chapters of the book from last to first, indicating a countdown instead of progression. This approach, in combination with the visual prompt of an empty quadrangle that is being filled with black as the story’s dark narrative moves forward, helps create and sustain the sense of tension and an atmosphere of doom. Such formal innovations (including the sections containing Harry’s Rules for Writers, which precede every chapter) complement the moral and thematic complexities of the novel, creating a uniformly unsettling experience.

Part 1 of the novel, entitled “Writers’ Disease,” refers to Marcus’s writer’s block, as he faces the possibility that his initial success might have been a fluke. The events that follow represent a possibility for Marcus not just to help his friend Harry but also to overcome his fears of creating. The additional information offered as a description of the title, “eight months before the book’s publication” (17), indicates that Marcus will write a second book, and that the book he writes will be one of the central motifs of the narrative.

Within the world of the novel, the past and the present almost co-exist (and this will become increasingly evident as the novel progresses). The disappearance and death of Nola Kellergan have disturbed the spirits of the small town of Somerset, and the ripples of past events create serious consequences in the present. This apparent and symbolic proximity of the events that took place in 1975 and the events happening in 2008 underscores a significant thematic point of the novel: Past sins cast long shadows. The initial trigger for this melding of past and present is the discovery of Nola’s body on Harry Quebert’s property.

Chapter 31 sets the scene and the tone: Marcus is unable to write, and he is becoming desperate. These facts provide motivation for Marcus’s contacting his old mentor Harry and visiting him in Somerset. It is clear from the start that Marcus has complex feelings towards Harry: On the one hand, he admires him and feels a filial bond, but on the other, he is jealous of the apparent ease of Harry’s talent, asking himself: “How had he, at my age, found the key to unlocking the genius” (34). This dynamic between two of the main characters is one of the axis points of the novel, and it sets further events into motion. Marcus’s desire to save the life and reputation of his mentor and friend is ambiguous. It exists both as the genuine emotional core of Marcus’s actions and as a barely hidden rivalry. Marcus is vain, which prompts Harry to say, “Your hubris always did get on my nerves. I’ve been telling you that for years” (33). In part, however, Marcus’s vanity allows him to keep investigating Nola’s murder despite threats and disparagement, and it leads him to write a book about it.

The first chapter makes it clear that Dicker positions Marcus and Harry as analogous, parallel characters: The life of one reflects in many ways the decisions of the other, and the impetus of the novel drives Marcus to learn to resist echoing Harry’s life. Harry voices the sentiment in the first chapter: “[I]f I can give you some advice, don’t be like me. You and I are very similar in many ways, so I’m begging you: Don’t repeat the mistakes I made” (34). Harry is referring to his own obsession with writing a masterpiece in 1975, emphasizing the price success has had for him: “[Y]ou’ll be left with a lonely heart and a bunch of sad words” (34). This will be the learning curve of Marcus’s character.

The first chapter also introduces the novel’s key moral dilemma, which is the acceptability of love between a 34-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl, “a sordid business” (37), as Harry himself labels it. The ethical and societal implications of this question will form the core of the plot involving Nola’s death, through which the author will explore the repercussions of forbidden love, especially in a small community.

Chapter 30 gives Dicker the opportunity to layer the narrative by combining plot progression with multifaceted characterization of the protagonist. His high school nickname, Marcus the Magnificent, emphasizes the arguably less likeable qualities of the main character. The origin of the nickname is indicative of that: The only team Marcus can get on in high school is volleyball, “made up of the rejects from all the other sports” (53), so he trains hard to prove himself and succeeds. Marcus then starts to reinvent himself and fictionalize his own life. His frauds lead him to boxing: Elated with his popularity, he needs something to ground him. Thanks to his many other schemes, Marcus becomes a hero with a place on the wall of honor.

After successfully navigating high school, Marcus receives offers for Harvard, Yale, and the little-known Burrows College. He chooses Burrows, as it is easier to be a star student there—he clearly expects to continue with his fraudulent practices. This line of exploration of Marcus’s character continues further in Chapter 28, where Marcus incurs the wrath of the Dean by behaving inappropriately and in a morally ambiguous way. It is clear the author positions Marcus as something of a fallen angel in need of redemption. This supplies another level of motivation for his investigation of Nola’s death: It offers a possibility for him to find true value in and for himself.

In Chapter 29, through the words of chief of police Travis Dawn, the author introduces the major plot details regarding Nola’s disappearance. In crime fiction, the pacing of the plot is all-important; It creates suspense and keeps the reader interested. We first see what happened to Nola from the spoken perspective of a character; this is the moment that shapes our perception of what has taken place, and how. A key element in crime fiction is misdirection, the ability to shed light on one thing while keeping the more significant ones shadowed. Since Travis Dawn is the chief of police, it seems only logical he will be the first to offer insights into the events of 1975; since—as we later learn—he is also the murderer, we can retrospectively grasp the complexity of his motivation in how he relates them. Thus, the fact that Travis was for Marcus “the first person to show concern” (62) reads one way at the beginning and quite differently once we have finished the novel.

This chapter also contains the first of many switches to the telling of the events of the past (in this case, Harry’s first meeting with Nola). These are told from a third-person viewpoint, and the author deliberately leaves it unclear whether these switches represent an “authentic” glimpse into the past or, perhaps, whether they offer glimpses of the book Marcus has written. Dicker plays with time levels and the reader’s perceptions of who tells the story; in doing so, he achieves both a feel for the past that is more direct and appears unmediated by retelling or remembering, and a distancing from the texture of the main action of the novel.

Chapter 28 takes place exclusively in the past, covering Marcus’s college years, and it details how his and Harry’s relationship developed. However, as opposed to other chapters that deal solely with past events, this one keeps the mode of retelling and the first-person narration from Marcus’s perspective, so, in effect, it represents a non-diegetic excurse (a narrative that abandons the main plotline and diverges from it). The chapter’s main purpose is to deepen the characterization of the protagonists.