62 pages • 2 hours read
The Word is Murder
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Symbols & Motifs
Grief and Loss
This motif permeates Diana Cowper’s life and death. Anthony notices that her home contains a photograph of her deceased husband, and Hawthorne comments, “If they were divorced, she wouldn’t keep his picture” (38). Both men are moved by Diana’s memorial garden to her husband. Anthony reflects, “Just for once, we were equally uncomfortable, standing there” (199). For all that Anthony is more comfortable with emotion, the depth of Diana’s mourning strikes him into silence along with Hawthorne. There is a similarly uncomfortable note in their visit to the Godwin family, as Anthony notes: “There was a sense of something in the air that might have been damp or dry rot but was actually just misery” (79). Judith Godwin mourns both her children, and her suffering permeates everything she touches.
Grief, too, explains why Diana goes into the funeral parlor the day of her murder: She believes Alan Godwin, Jeremy and Timothy’s father, murdered her cat in an act of revenge. In a sense, this links her to her killer: For all his rage and incoherence, Cornwallis’s quest for vengeance is a response to loss, the career he believed Damian Cowper stole from him.
Further, even the absence of grief is revelatory for Hawthorne: Grace Lovell seems almost liberated by the loss of Damian, underlining that his death, while violent and undeserved, is not, for her, a tragedy.
The Importance of Setting and Travel
Anthony makes careful note of the parts of London Hawthorne brings him to, including his relationships to and impressions of each location. These observations frequently undergird his larger thematic points or aspects of characterization. He describes Acton, where Diana’s housecleaner lives, as “dispiriting if only because there [are] so many homes packed together” (58). They find similar levels of poverty inside. Victoria, near Alan Godwin’s workplace is, “a weird part of London on the wrong side of Buckingham Palace” (169), as befits Godwin’s failing business. The early part of the narrative is full of such travel, as before they set out for Damian’s residence Anthony says, “[I]t felt more like an A to Z of London than a murder mystery” (93). At this stage, then, Anthony the character cannot find the narrative threads that connect them, underlying his disorientation in his new role and new genre.
Anthony finds himself initially uncertain about traveling to interview witnesses, noting, “I was being dragged into unfamiliar territory in every sense and I didn’t feel comfortable having Hawthorne as my guide” (175). Travel also highlights the friction between the investigative partners, as Hawthorne is uncomfortable discussing his book club and reading of Camus. Anthony grows increasingly frustrated on the train when Hawthorne rejects his theory that Alan Godwin is the killer but will not explain why, insisting that the key “was in that rubbish first chapter [Anthony] showed [him]” (188). It is in Canterbury, not London, where Anthony once more confronts Hawthorne with his anti-gay bias, leading him to declare, “Maybe you’re not right for this, Tony” (194). Travel deepens the discord between the two, ultimately prompting Anthony to confront the killer alone, changing the course of the investigation and his partnership with Hawthorne.
The Contrast Between Childhood and Advancing Age
The novel’s plot, its metafictional nature, and Anthony’s own descriptions reinforce that age, childhood, and mortality are enduring issues in the text. Anthony reflects, as the novel opens, “At this time I was known mainly as a children’s author although I secretly hoped that The House of Silk would change that. […] I had just turned fifty-five. It was time to move on” (11). Hawthorne, instead of apologizing for interrupting his meeting with Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg, says, “You don’t want to do Tintin. It’s for children” (113). Both Horowitzes, then, are self-consciously moving into a new authorial phase, conscious of their own adulthood and need to seek new readerships.
This motif recurs throughout the case, as Anthony finds himself drawn into the ways the Godwin family tragedy intersects with the life and death of Diana Cowper. Anthony immediately assumes that “the boy who was lacerated” must refer to Jeremy Godwin (50). Meeting Jeremy is a rare shared emotional moment for the investigative team, as Anthony thinks of his own now-adult sons, calling Jeremy’s fate “the embodiment of a nightmare I tried not to have” while Hawthorne admits that he has a young son himself (90-91). Anthony ultimately commits to the project with Hawthorne, telling his agent about it and welcoming her news that she has secured a contract for the series, marking his career transition. This seems especially fitting as the result of his encounter with the killer, given that Cornwallis’s homicidal impulses stem from his own thwarted youthful ambitions. Anthony accepts his own adulthood, and his own mortality, in ways Cornwallis cannot.
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