Existential Dread
The novel is quite literally an examination of existentialism in that it pursues the question of what existence actually means. Does one actually exist if there is no evidence of it? Following her unique deal with the devil, Addie becomes the living embodiment of Anne Sexton’s self-observation about being a watercolor that washes off easily. Addie’s whole life after making her deal is to be there in the moment and washed away from memory for eternity. If no one can remember your being there, were you really there at all? Can you exist if others don’t know it?
Female Invisibility
It is almost impossible to imagine a man writing this book as it is so deeply steeped in the long history of women being invisible. One is tempted to make the glib mistake of saying that history is filled with women whose contributions were overlooked, erased, forgotten or never acknowledged but of course the only history we have is of those women who were lucky enough to somehow have their contribution eventually come to light. For every Rosalind Franklin who came perilously close to being written out of the story of the discovery of DNA entirely there must certainly be millions of women in history who weren’t fortunate enough to finally have their contributions fully certified and recognized and who have thus become invisible to us. This theme is the dominant subtext of Addie’s story that eventually rises to the position of context by virtue of irony that Addie only escapes of eternal invisibility due to her story being told by a man.
Dealing with the Devil
Addie’s fate is delivered courtesy of a Faustian bargain with an obviously powerful force characterized with traditionally evil associations of black hair and green eyes. Whether granter of wishes—he will come to be known as Luc—is actually the devil or simply one of the devil’s minions or has anything to do with the devil at all is beside the point; it could just as well be that entity commonly referred to as God. The point is that Luc is powerful enough to offer Addie eternal life and youth at a premium price and so as is always the case with these stories, the question becomes is the deal with its cost?
Lying in the center of every Faustian story is ultimately one singular question and it is not why make a deal with the devil when everything should tell us that nobody ever outsmarts the devil. The real question that sits there is one that is almost never asked: why do we always assume that it is the devil who is making a deal for our soul? Is that what God does when he demands faith and obedience? The relationship between Addie and Luc is far more complicated than the standard Faust/Mephistopheles relationship and the manner in which Addie re-negotiates her contractual understanding brings into the question the nature of such compacts being inherently devilish.
