Book Review: The Only One Left

Spoilers ahead!

Like an ostentatious, opulent mansion built into the cliffs of Maine, our preconceived notions often sit upon a crumbling facade. Such is the case in Riley Sager’s 2023 gothic tale, The Only One Left. Set in 1983, but spanning back to 1929, Sager’s book feels like the aforementioned mansion built into the cliffs: tilted, keeping readers like me topsy-turvy, guessing at what is going on, while all the time, we’re destined to slide into the cold depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

Kit, a disgraced caregiver, who was castigated by the public (and a stubborn detective) as having murdered her mother in a quasi-euthanasia scheme, is allowed to remain as a caregiver after not being charged with a crime. She is given the job of caregiving for someone who faced similar castigation 54 years previously: Lenora Hope, who lives at Hope’s End, the gothic mansion in the cliffs. Lenora, who was also never charged, is thought to have killed her mother, father, and sister in 1929, days before the stock market crash that led to the Great Depression. She’s now infirm, debilitated by a series of strokes, confined to a wheelchair and the use of only her left hand, and unable to speak. When Kit arrives at Hope’s End — a helluva name for an estate, but also would have made a better book title, in my estimation! — it doesn’t take long for a few story threads to become apparent. First, Miss Baker, the longtime housekeeper since 1929, is the stereotypical cold, aloof, tyrannical presence overseeing the mansion. Second, Mary, the previous caregiver, mysteriously disappeared without a trace, leaving behind everything she had at Hope’s End. Third, Lenora wants to tell her story via a typewriter and the assistance of Kit to hit the return and shift keys.

As is apropos with this gothic tale, I love that it’s set in 1983 (and 1929) because modernity doesn’t lend itself well to gothic tales, at least with what takes place in this novel, i.e., a rich father who expects his two daughters (Lenora and Virginia) to behave in a particular way befitting their class status, Lenora’s telling of it through pecking away at at a typewriter, and obviously, much of the story would be different if Kit’s reaction to everything was aided by being in the 21st century.

I was about 100 pages into the story, though, when I had at least one of the major forthcoming plot twists figured out. My theory was that Lenora was actually Virginia. The reason I thought this was primarily because in her entries via the typewriter, “Lenora” talked about hating Hope’s End and wanting to be outdoors. If Lenora was Lenora, then it made no sense to confine herself at Hope’s End for more than half a century … unless Lenora was actually Virginia. Now, I didn’t know what all this implicated, other than the fact that the basics of the 1929 murders doesn’t fit anymore. Virginia wasn’t killed.

The two twists I didn’t see coming were that Miss Baker wasn’t Miss Baker at all, but rather Lenora, who kept her sister, Virginia, confined to the estate, and changed her identity, faking Virginia’s death in the process, in a twisted bid to protect her against murder charges. And that Lenora’s, aka Virginia’s, lover who impregnated her in 1929 was … Kit’s father?! What the heck? He was paid hush money by Virginia’s father. Outraged by this, Virginia nearly killed her father. Instead, Virginia’s mother, also rightly bitter toward her philandering husband, plunged the knife into him and then herself. She egged Kit’s father to finish the deed. When Mary discovered all of this, Kit’s father returned to Hope’s End to kill her, and when Kit discovers it all over again, he again returns to Hope’s End, this time to kill Virginia.

That’s when Hope’s End finally, inevitability, plunges into the Atlantic Ocean, taking him and Lenora with it. Kit and Virginia were able to escape, which led to the fourth overall twist, and third I didn’t see coming: Virginia can move and talk. She absconds with Jessie, the young housekeeper who is actually her granddaughter, so they can travel the world together. Now, around the same time I suspected Lenora was Virginia, I also wondered if she was faking her condition. But Sager, the sneaky author he is, had Kit suspect the same thing and even test it out. Kit was convinced Lenora was as infirm as presented, and so, I was, too. I’m not sure how I feel about that particular twist. I was skeptical, at first, that Kit’s father was the real villain all along, but I warmed up to it the more I thought about it (mainly, trying to make sure the timeline made sense). But Virginia being able to move all this time? That means she faked being confined to a wheelchair and paralyzed, unable to speak, for more than 50 years. That means she had scores of nurses bathe her and essentially treat her like a feeble child for 50 years. I find it hard to believe anyone would keep up such a charade so long, even out of stated bitterness for their sibling (Lenora). I don’t think even bitterness can last that long! Especially since, as I said, Virginia hated Hope’s End! It’s particularly baffling Virginia became a beloved celebrity late in life when all of this information came out since it’s deranged behavior to fake such a condition for so long.

Oh, there was a fifth twist. No, Kit didn’t help euthanize her mother. And no, her mother didn’t intentionally overdose on her pills. Kit’s father euthanized the mother in another act of villainy because even if you think it was justified — if you believe euthanasia is acceptable in the face of someone’s deteriorating quality of life — what isn’t justified is letting everyone think Kit killed her, including Kit herself! What a bastard.

I enjoyed Sager’s book because of its gothic setting, time periods (1929 and 1983), and the parallel character arcs of Kit and Lenora (Virginia) being wrongly castigated as the killers of their family members. Like many modern thrillers, Sager’s book also takes a few twists and turns, perhaps one too many for my taste, but nonetheless, I enjoyed the crumbling of all preconceived notions along the way.