Freedom and Agency
Throughout her life, Evelyn is very concerned with having the freedom to control her own fate and destiny. As a Cuban-American woman, born into poverty, and a bisexual woman, she is vulnerable in many ways, especially during the decades in which she grows up and achieves fame. While Evelyn's identities tend to circumscribe her freedom, she creates agency for herself by being very strategic, and willing to exploit situations to her advantage. She is not afraid to use her appearance and sexuality to get what she wants, and she also conceals information in order to preserve her freedom. At various times, Evelyn also insists on concealing her relationship with Celia so that they can both retain as much freedom as possible to have the careers they want. Paradoxically, Evelyn's celebrity and wealth gives her some significant freedom (to buy whatever she wants, to make the films she wants to make, and to support causes she cares about) but it also limits her freedom: she cannot openly live her life as a bisexual woman. Evelyn shows how important freedom is to her by choosing to end her own life on her own terms, rather than be at the mercy of her illness.
Wealth
Wealth is an important theme in the novel; when Monique first begins meeting with Evelyn, she is dazzled by Evelyn's beauty and charisma, but also by the wealth and luxury that surrounds her. Evelyn grew up in poverty, and knew that if she remained poor, her life would be much more limited and vulnerable. She is quite pragmatic about her career, and makes it clear that she pursues acting because of the way it allows her to achieve fortune and fame. Evelyn's money gives her significant independence from the men in her life, during time periods in which it was not common for a woman to be financially independent. While she marries her various husbands for many reasons, Evelyn never has to pursue a man for financial gain because she secures her own successful career and financial independence. However, Evelyn's need for financial security leads to her sometimes making hurtful decisions, such as insisting on hiding her relationship with Celia, lest their careers collapse and they both end up in poverty. At the end of her life, Evelyn confides to Monique that she finds her life empty, even with all of her wealth, because everyone she loves has predeceased her.
Secrets and Privacy
As a celebrity, intimate aspects of Evelyn's life are often the subject of gossip and rumor. In reaction to the prying interest in her life, Evelyn becomes extremely guarded and private, particularly about the topics that actually render her vulnerable. Over the course of her extended conversation with Monique, Evelyn reveals two huge secrets: that she is a bisexual woman who considers Celia to have been the love of her life, and that she covered up Harry's role in the accident that killed Monique's father. Even though Evelyn is so famous and well-known, she keeps some of the most important details of her life completely secret, and these secrets eventually weigh on her. As Evelyn narrates her life story, she seems to find relief in finally confiding the whole truth to someone; she wants the truth to be known about who she was, but she also wants to maintain secrecy until after her death. Evelyn finally frees herself from keeping her sexual identity a secret, but she also never gets to live in that truth because she only allows the secret to be revealed after her death.
Sexuality and Desire
Evelyn's success and fame relies heavily on her sexual desirability on screen, and her willingness to capitalize on it. She chooses roles strategically in order to play up her sexual allure, and also constructs a celebrity persona that aligns with this allure. Behind the scenes, Evelyn also uses men's sexual desire for her in order to advance her own goals; for example, she has sex with a much older producer in order to secure her breakout role when she is initially only cast in small roles, and later seduces Mick Riva in order to deflect and protect the privacy of her relationship to Celia. Evelyn is pragmatic and unashamed about using her body and sexuality to get what she wants. However, Evelyn's personal and authentic relationship to desire is often ironically in conflict with her public persona of sexuality. Evelyn experiences real desire and pleasure through her relationship with Celia, but she also has to hide that relationship. Twice, Evelyn severely damages her relationship with Celia as a result of her more public sexual persona: first, when she seduces Mick Riva, and second, when she films an explicit sex scene with Don Adler, without telling Celia about it first. Because she needs to maintain a certain persona and public image, which includes a certain type of sexuality (notably, a heterosexual one), Evelyn damages a relationship that more accurately reflects her true sexuality and desire.
Family
Monique struggles with the concept of family, because she mourns the collapse of her marriage, and also misses her father, who died when she was young. Nonetheless, Monique has a close connection with her mother, who is a supportive and loving presence in her life. Evelyn, on the other hand, has lost her entire family: Celia, Harry, and Evelyn's daughter Connor have all predeceased her. As she approaches the end of her life, Evelyn feels quite sad and alone because of the absence of family ties in her life. Through this contrast, the novel shows that family is very important. However, the novel also complicates the idea of what family can mean: Monique eventually realizes that her father was attracted to men and had a romantic relationship with Harry Cameron, and yet he was also a good partner to her mother and a loving father to her. For a period of time, Evelyn exists in a non-traditional, 4-person family with herself, Celia, John, and Harry. She later establishes another non-traditional family when she and Harry conceive a child and co-parent together, without experiencing a romantic or sexual relationship. While the presence of loving family relationships are necessary for the characters in the novel, many of them form happy families that exist outside a normative model of monogamous heterosexuality.
Moral Ambiguity
Throughout her life, Evelyn often acts in morally ambiguous ways. She lies and deceives people in order to achieve her goals, and often exploits circumstances in order to get what she wants. She even covers up Harry's responsibility in a fatal drunk driving accident in order to protect him and their family. Most of the time, Evelyn claims to have no regrets about her actions and choices. She is self-aware enough to know that many of her choices are morally ambiguous, but she believes in autonomy and freedom, and defends her right to live her life the way that she wants. However, Evelyn's need to tell the truth about her past, and to share that past with Monique in particular, hints that she may feel more morally conflicted than she appears. In a sense, Evelyn wants to confess before she dies so that she might feel greater peace at the end of her life.
Marriage
As the novel's title implies, marriage is an important theme. Evelyn has 7 public marriages, and 1 private and deeply personal one (a non-legal marriage to Celia). All of these marriages are different: some are fulfilling, and meet the needs of both parties, while others are manipulative and destructive. Other marriages depicted in the novel also contribute to the theme by illustrating different advantages and challenges, such as the marriages of Monique's parents, Monique's own marriage to David, and the marriage of Celia and John Braverman. By developing the theme of marriage, the novel argues that marriage can be much more complex and multifaceted; it is often not as simple as two people who love other. By highlighting that Evelyn married several men whom she did not truly love, but was never able to marry (or even publicly declare her love for) the woman she loved more than anything, the novel also situates marriage as a legal status that has not always been available to everyone equally.
