Spoilers!
Just as sure as the outside of a house is a facade is as sure as it is also a facade for the home it contains. We all wear masks of one variety or another in our daily interactions and as we navigate life, and indeed, those masks extend to our interpersonal relationships and familial relationships. Families keep secrets from outsiders, and from each other. The facades are everywhere. Robyn Harding explores what happens when those facades, including the literal facade of a house, are threatened with collapse and invasion in her 2021 psychological thriller, The Perfect Family.
Everyone in the Adler family is harboring a secret they are keeping from the outside world and each other. Viv, the mom, is a kleptomaniac, stealing largely insignificant items from people and keeping them in a hidden compartment within her closet. Thomas, the father, was blackout drunk at a bachelor party and his (terrible) coworkers took photos of him in compromising positions with a stripper, then shared those photos in the workplace (again, terrible people), and now, it seems, the stripper is blackmailing him over the photos, which also include violence toward the stripper (bite marks and choking bruises). Eli is home from college and he’s not going back because he participated and witnessed a hazing incident with his soccer team of the new player, where they sodomized him with a wooden handle (what the hell), and he’s terrified of blowing the whistle, owing to self-admitted cowardice and fear of reprisal from his fellow soccer teammates. Tarryn, a high schooler who is camming — appearing on a webcam in front of paying customers in her underwear with a wig and makeup to obscure her identity, where she talks about whatever the customer wants to talk about — starts getting creepy messages from one of the customers, who seems to know her real identity.
But the worst secret of all that they each have in common? Feeling uniquely lonely within their family, unable to share their pain, hurt, fears, and secrets with any of the others, whether between a two-decade-long married couple, siblings, mother-daughter, father-son, mother-son, or father-daughter It’s sad. Like I said, we all have secrets and we all wear masks up to a point, but it’s sad to see how lonely each of them are, and it’s that loneliness that makes them act out in stupid ways. Viv’s kleptomania is her acting out her loneliness; Thomas leans into the masculine caricature of taking care of his family by trying to negotiate his way out of the blackmail; Eli rebels against what he perceives as his overbearing parents by paying a few delinquent skateboarders to egg and bottle the house (which quickly gets out of hand); and Tarryn tries to figure out who is stalking her by herself, including confronting a teacher who was rumored to have had a sexual relationship with a student, although, how did she know where he lived? I digress …
Even as the harassment of the Adler family intensifies from eggs and smoke bombs to setting a hedge outside their house on fire, which I figured meant the harassment was coming from two different types of people, Eli and Tarryn, youngsters or not, are weirdly blasé about it. It’s just kids. Or, the parents of one of the kids, essentially argues it’s boys being boys. The police are apathetic and toothless. To be honest, I thought the two kids were rather unlikable, which I suppose is the point since they’re younger. But they’re also not that young to be so unlikable. They’re just so mean to their parents, but I’m not a parent, and maybe that’s how kids are at that age. In other words, I find it to be common and normal to harbor bitter thoughts toward your parents as you mature; it’s just how it is, we all experience that, but it’s quite another thing to actively compel harm upon your parents (or their property, which is where you and your little sister live, by the way!). I was particularly aghast when Thomas does tell his kids about the compromising photos, and the kids are against him, Eli thinking he was always arrogant and vain, and Tarryn that he’s a misogynist who probably was violent with the stripper. Dang … And Viv, understandably at times, is rather hysterical throughout. In contrast to Thomas’ overt attempt as machismo, she thinks she can smooth things over woman-to-woman with womanly restraint and diplomacy. For example, Thomas and Eli accosted a 15-year-old for throwing a bottle at their house. The parents then sue Viv and Thomas. When Viv goes to the house and talks to the mom, they end up in an unproductive yelling match. Whoops. For the record, we never do learn what comes of the lawsuit, which Viv said Thomas should just pay and be done with it! Agh!
So, here’s how everything shakes out:
- As alluded to, Eli was behind the kids tormenting the Adlers’ house with eggs, bottles, and overall harassment. Which is somewhat funny because Eli was tasked by his father with cleaning it up the next morning. A different kid — Viv stole his fake Oxy pills, and then he was savagely beaten by the drug dealer for losing them — sought revenge with more escalatory measures, the aforementioned burning hedge, flattening Thomas’ tires, and probably the worst items, like leaving a dead rat in their fridge and a wasp’s nest in their garbage can. All of this comes to light when Eli tries to put an end to it by confronting the kids and instead is shot by Viv (Eli was wearing a mask). Which I did think friendly fire was going to happen the second Thomas introduced the gun into the house! I didn’t realize Eli was behind some of it, though. But the harassment is also not over because just when we think everything is back to normal at the Adler residence, the book ends with an egg splatting against their house. What gives?!
- Tarryn’s own friend was behind the cam chat messages after finding out about Tarryn camming from her cousin, incidentally, one of Eli’s friends, and she was trying to warn her friend off of underage camming. Tarryn flipped out about it, but they made up in the end. And yet, we’re left hanging because some of the messages weren’t from Tarryn’s friend. Again, I ask, what gives?!
- Thomas’ tormentor and blackmailer wasn’t the stripper, but his secretary at work, Emma, who was blackmailing him for money to pay for her wedding and out of resentment he didn’t pay her better for her work. She was a jerk, and I had zero sympathy for her. She accused Thomas of being arrogant and vain, but, hello, let me introduce you to the kettle, Emma; kettle, meet, pot! Grr.
Eli, for his part, finds his courage and helps the college student who was hazed. Viv does admit everything to the mother of the boy whose drugs she stole. And Thomas comes to an understanding with Emma: She resigns from the company, and he doesn’t press charges for blackmail. But what about the $10,000 he already gave to Emma (when he thought she was the stripper)?!
As you can see, I have a few unanswered questions after reading Harding’s book, but the two I’m most perturbed were left hanging: a.) why the egg splat at the end?! and b.) why allude to Tarryn having another stalker? I don’t have an answer to the first one unless Harding was planning a sequel. As to the second, maybe that’s Harding’s way of hammering home the point for Tarryn that she shouldn’t cam, i.e., it’s too dangerous? I’m not sure, particularly because Tarryn’s whole thing is sex positivity and that it’s okay to cam, if she wants to cam.
But there is no denying that Harding’s book was endlessly readable. I was fully invested! Any time I had to put the book down, I was frustrated to be interrupted, even to go to the bathroom. She also structured it the way a lot of modern books are with the plot popping quickly between each of the four characters’ points-of-view, so, that also made for a quick read, and it also allowed for the aforementioned common thread of loneliness to be explored between each of the characters, each lonely in their own way. I’m down for more Harding. I think I need a sequel to this one, though!
Milam's Musings 