Essay Questions

What beloved work of children’s literature plays a significant role in the novel and how?

The narrator is a woman suffering the height of her mental and emotional distress during the events she recounts in the story. Those afflicted by particularly troublesome mental anguish and anxiety are prone to carrying two things along with on a long trip: their meds and whatever particular totem for stress-relief seems to work. For the narrator, the latter is a copy of a Winnie-the-Pooh book by A.A. Milne. She explicitly states its anti-depressant effect by confessing the volume has “always been my comfort read, my go-to book in times of stress.” As things turn out, there is another passenger on board the ship (spoiler-free zone) who shares a deep appreciation for the characters of the Hundred Acre Wood and the two bond over book and the memories of childhood. A reference to Tigger—the tiger with a top made of rubber and a bottom made of springs—will pop up near the very end of the story, giving the Pooh connection an even deeper level of significance.

What is the singularly consequential contribution to the story made by the pretty young girl in the ratty Pink Floyd shirt?

A young woman with dark hair and attired in a Pink Floyd T-shirt which had seen better days first shows up in Chapter Six. The rock band fan attire shows up as the identifying characteristic of the young woman briefly in several other chapters before finally being referenced for the last time—on three succeeding pages—ten chapters from the end. The tendency toward referential treatment of a single item associated with a character generally trends toward the likelihood that the character in question is minor. This is not so much the case in this particular instance; in fact, in this instance it is exactly the opposite. To explain in detail why the girl in the Pink Floyd is such an important character would be to go well beyond spoiler alert, but her very singular contribution to the story can be divulged with going into great detail or giving away too much. The girl in the Pink Floyd shirt is none other than…the woman in cabin 10.

Lo Blacklock has sometimes been referred to as an example of an “unreliable narrator.” Why would this be the case and what point is the author trying to make?

The book opens with a home invasion that inflicts deep psychological scars on the narrator. She suffers from sleep deprivation, is prone to alcohol abuse, takes prescription medication and is clearly suffering from a level of paranoia feverish enough for others to see advantageously. She also finds herself find the middle of a mysterious death at sea, the machinations of a very strange and powerful man and all the while pursuing a job assignment. All of which would probably make her less likely to be singled out as potentially unreliable if she weren’t a woman. The author directly addresses the various aspects at play here—PTSD, mental health issues, feminist expectations and old-fashioned chauvinism while situating the entire plot firmly within the broad-based spectrum of paranoia her narrator suffers as a key element driving the narrative. Ultimately, the narrator turns out to be quite reliable which seems to suggest that the author wanted to make a statement about the various issues at play as well as just simply write a good old-fashioned thriller.