Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

“Dad was always out at night; it came with the territory. I have affectionate memories of him, I truly do, but what I think of most when I think about him is the spaces he left. It was easier to tell where my dad had been than to see where he was. The empty armchair in the living room. The plate in the oven. Stubble in the bathroom sink. Three empty holsters in a six-pack in the fridge. My father was footprints, residue.”

Though he is deceased when the novel takes place, Ernie’s father, Robert, drives the novel’s conflict. This quote speaks to the symbolic nature of Robert’s character: Though he is physically absent, this absence is both palpable and important, just as was the case when Ernie was a child.

“[When] Detective McMuffin had me holed up in an interview room a couple of decades later and wouldn’t believe anything I was telling him[,] I wasn’t Ernest Cunningham anymore. I was ‘his kid.’ My mother became ‘his widow.’ Our family name was an invisible tattoo: we were the family of a cop killer.”

The Cunningham reputation is an important trope throughout the novel, tied into the themes of The Quest for the Truth and Righting Past Wrongs. Ernie is, by merely sharing his father’s last name, regarded as suspicious by police. Importantly, Robert is not just a criminal, but elevated as the worst kind of criminal because he has killed a police officer. The irony that will become apparent is that the police who died and were involved with Robert were criminals as well.

“I know I’m the narrator, but it interested me that I wasn’t the only one scratching around the death. Crime novels always look at the motives of a list of suspects, but only from the perspective of the inspired inquirer. Am I really the detective just because it’s my voice you have to listen to? I guess this whole story would be different if someone else wrote it. Maybe I’m only the Watson after all.”

Here, the narrator breaks the fourth wall by speaking directly to the reader, acknowledging that he is guiding the reader through a fictious scenario. One of the key aspects of the novel that characterizes it as metafiction is the way in which it explicitly calls into question the tropes of the mystery novel. This breaking of the fourth wall also plays with the theme of The Quest for the Truth, as the unreliable narrator is unreliable on multiple levels now: both within the world of the story and outside of it.

“Everything I’d thought this encounter would be, it wasn’t. I was struggling to reconcile the man in front of me with the man I’d built in my head: one full of anger, pain, and revenge. I thought it might have been a front for everyone else, and the mask could drop when we were alone, but it didn’t feel like a trick. Call it brotherhood. Call it blood. I’d brought a bag of cash in the hope that he’d hear me out. He brought a handshake and a smile and hoped for the same.”

Ernie is surprised when, upon his release from prison, Michael is friendly and does not appear to hold a grudge or harbor any anger toward Ernie for his role in Michael’s conviction. Ernie’s words suggest that to Michael, Cunningham loyalty supersedes any kind of grudge. This moment ties into the theme of Familial Loyalty and Betrayal; in a novel where nothing is as it seems, Michael’s straightforward approach to familial loyalty contrasts with the murky feelings of the rest of the family toward Ernie and even with Ernie’s feelings toward himself.

“‘Michael hurt somebody, Mum. I did what I thought was right.’

I deliberately said ‘I thought’ in the middle, even though I knew I was in the right. ‘I’m doing what I think is right now.’”

Here, Ernie attempts to make amends with his mother, trying to convince her that he did not act out of disloyalty to the Cunningham bond when he testified against Michael at the murder trial. Now that Michael, upon his arrival at the resort, is suspected once again of being responsible for a death, Ernie uses his morality to guide him. His mother, however, views both circumstances differently.

“Because I was hurt and because I’d never said it to her face, I lashed out. ‘Michael is a killer.’

‘He killed someone. But does that make him a killer? People kill people and get medals for it. People kill people because it’s their job. Michael’s not rare or different. You label him a murderer? Do you think the same of Katherine? Of Sofia? If you had to make the same choices he did, for whatever reasons he made them, what would that make you?’”

Audrey is adamant that an isolated action by Michael does not and should not define his entire character for the rest of his life. She is able to separate this action from the person that Michael is and extends this view to the other family members who have also caused the death of another person. In Audrey’s view, the intentional causing of a death on Michael’s part is not so different than the accidental or negligent deaths caused by Katherine or Sofia.

“‘We’re here because of you. Michael is in that room because of you. You did this. You’re just like your father. He knew what he was leaving us to fight, and he left us to fight alone anyway, and we paid the price. We all did.’ Her voice was venom. ‘If only he’d left us a weapon to fight it with. But he didn’t. Nothing in the bank. And you did the same thing to Michael.’”

Though Audrey asserts that Robert’s actions as a petty criminal were excusable, she argues that his killing of the police officer was a bridge to far and a form of disloyalty to the Cunningham family. In Audrey’s view, his actions were not carried out with regard to their impact on the family as a whole. She feels the same is true of Ernie’s testifying against Michael at his trial three years prior.

“‘My point is: nothing’—he was speaking to the ground, shaking his head with each word—‘not a crowbar, not a war, not a goddamn alien invasion, could split us Cunninghams up. And then’—he lifted his gaze, pointed at my chest—‘you did.’”

Michael’s words come across as accusatory, suggesting he has not forgiven Ernie for Ernie’s role in sending Michael to prison. Here, he echoes Audrey, who faults Ernie for splintering the Cunningham family. Later in the chapter, however, it becomes clear that Michael does not intend these words as a harmful accusation, but rather as a statement of truth that he appreciates.

“I don’t trust a single one of them. You’re the only person I can talk to because you’re the only one who was willing to stand up in that courtroom and condemn me. That means I know you’ll help me do what’s right.”

Michael’s words to Ernie indicate that he not only does not hold any ill will toward Ernie’s testifying against him but also understands (and agrees with) Ernie’s reason for doing so. Michael is alone, ironically, in not holding a grudge against Ernie. Though Ernie’s actions have impacted Michael most of all, Michael does not fault him. Michael’s more nuanced approach to his family’s deep bonds thereby provides depth to the theme of Familial Loyalty and Betrayal.

“Audrey didn’t only mistrust the police because she thought the bad ones had killed her husband. She thought the good ones, the ones who’d promised my father a way out, had got him killed. My betrayal was laid bare: I’d chosen to side with the law, the same as my father, and it had failed to protect us.”

When Michael reveals to Ernie that Alan Holton was a corrupt police officer, Ernie begins to understand why his mother not only despises and distrusts the police but also feels so bitter regarding Ernie’s testifying against Michael. Because the police have betrayed the Cunninghams, Audrey views any alliance with authority as the ultimate betrayal and an affront to the family loyalty she values.

“I must admit, even though I was looking at a dead man, a man my father had shot in the neck, I felt nothing. No stirring of guilt, no disgust. It was like looking at the body on the mountain: purely academic. And now, with Michael having told me this corpse belonged to someone crooked, someone who tried to kill my father, I felt even less. The body in the coffin was meaningless to me. I’d tried so hard to shield myself with blind ignorance, I didn’t know a single thing about the long-dead policeman.”

The crime that ultimately led to Robert Cunningham’s death has largely existed as an abstract concept for Ernie, partly because of his young age at the time of the event. The viewing of the policeman’s corpse is reminiscent of both the body of Alan Holton and that of Green Boots, both of which Ernie has also viewed. This moment later contrasts with the moment in which Ernie finds Michael dead. Ernie, as well as the rest of Cunninghams, will not experience Michael’s death in the same detached way.

“‘This is yours, and Michael’s, when you want it. But most of all, this is a watch designed to be handed down through family. I wear it to remind me.’ He paused, looking at the watch with a sentimentality that I really didn’t believe my father had possessed for trinkets. ‘To look after you both. And your mother.’

I covered my scoff with another hacking cough. All I saw was a rich man revering his own possessions, justifying the pursuit of a dead friend’s wife as noble.”

The symbolism of the Rolex watch is emphasized by Marcelo’s explanation of the item here. Ironically, Marcelo is not aware that the watch is a fake, having been replaced by Sofia after she stole the real one. It parallels the way in which Marcelo is a type of substitute father for Robert, Ernie’s deceased father, and emphasizes Ernie’s belief that the love Marcelo holds for him is merely “for show” like the flashy watch and not genuine.

“Before you get a big head over it, you haven’t caught me out. While there is something to be learned from the book’s internal logic, it’s not that. I may as well come out with it, spoiler and all. Marcelo did not kill Michael. He is not the Black Tongue.

I have not been dishonest, and neither is this a plot hole, although I promised there’d be one. As it happens, that was in the previous section too. If you recall, I said there’d be a hole in the plot you could drive a truck through. I meant it literally.”

Here, Ernie breaks the fourth wall once again, reminding readers that he, the narrator, is aware that he is intentionally shaping the way the reader learns the details surrounding the mystery. These direct addresses to the reader pull the reader out of the flow of the story in a way that reminds them to pay attention to potential clues that will allow them to solve the mystery themselves. The mention of the plot hole underscores the trope of the unreliable narrator.

“Everything had changed. Before, we had the body of an unknown man, brutally murdered but almost comically so. Such was the strangeness of his death in fire and unmelted snow that we could all approach it with, as morbid as it sounds, an intellectual curiosity—or, for those who disagreed with Sofia’s serial killer theory, ignore it completely. Green Boots was a puzzle to be solved: an inconvenience, a curiosity. While I’d been strutting about, pretending to be a literary detective, had I even bothered to care? But this time, the victim had a name. Regretfully, the whole damn thing. Michael Ryan Cunningham.”

The death of Michael is an important complication in the novel’s plot, cementing the death of the unknown man as not merely an accident. Ernie’s acknowledgment of their detachment concerning the death of this man is reminiscent of the way deaths are treated in mystery novels—the dead are not people to be mourned, but the starting point of an entertaining game to play. Michael’s death, however, provides an emotional contrast.

“But if I’d have told you, you would have pushed. You wouldn’t have known what you were pushing against, and you would have done it in your funny charming way, and maybe you’d have dropped it for a year or two, but you would have pushed. I couldn’t tell you about Mum. I haven’t told anyone since I was a teenager, when I realized it was easier to tell people she was sick. I couldn’t face the judgment. I thought, with enough time, I could give you what you wanted. I really tried.”

Erin’s explanation to Ernie as to why she prevented becoming pregnant, despite telling Ernie she was trying to become pregnant, helps Ernie better understand her actions. Erin did not behave this way out of malice toward Ernie but because of the sadness and trauma she carries over the death of her mother. This conversation heals some of the divide between Ernie and Erin.

“I turned to my mother. ‘You put your hurt above everyone else’s. You raised us in pain because your husband died. You cast me aside because of what I did to your family. Well, it’s my family too.’ I softened, because despite my anger, I had come to understand her better. I sat on the bed. ‘I know it was hard. After you lost Dad, you had to do it all on your own. And I know you started to define yourself because of your name, because of what people thought of Dad, and I know that the only way to deal with that was to turn inwards, to make that name your own. But in doing so, you started to live up to the label that other people made for you. Cunningham doesn’t mean what you think it does.’”

This quote speaks to the theme of Familial Loyalty and Betrayal. Ernie points out to Audrey that her grief after Robert’s death prevented her from helping he and his brothers properly grieve themselves. Likewise, it speaks to the theme of familial loyalty and betrayal as Ernie tries to show Audrey why his testifying against Michael should not be considered a betrayal of the Cunningham reputation and legacy.

“‘I never meant to take sides, Mum.’ I reflected on her telling me I’d been making the same mistakes my father had, and I understood her a little better now. I felt her hand, until now only resting on mine, clasp tightly. ‘I was trying to do what was right. But there’s right and then there’s right for us. I didn’t know you’d had to pay so high a price.’”

Ernie and Audrey come to a kind of truce at last, as each is able to express their feelings to the other and, in turn, be made to understand how the other person interprets Robert Cunningham’s death and its aftermath differently. Importantly, Ernie recognizes that morality is not straightforward and that it can shift relative to the circumstances one finds themselves in. Though the family has now lost Michael as well as Robert, the family members have found a way to strengthen their familial bond through this latest loss.

“But those detectives were smarter than I was. I had no author pulling my marionette strings, no gifts bestowed upon me. I would not qualify for the Detection Club. I remember thinking the only thing I was sure of was that I was missing something. Something small. That there’s always one thing in these books that unlocks everything else, and it is so often the smallest of things. There was something I couldn’t see. Not without a good old-fashioned Holmesian magnifying glass anyway. Or a loupe.”

Though the novel takes a “tongue-in-cheek” approach to the mystery novel genre in referencing its tropes directly, it still utilizes them. These tropes help readers recognize which details to pay attention to and which are likely meant to trick or distract them. As Ernie has suspected, the loupe is needed to solve the mystery, but not in any of the ways he initially thought.

“‘I waited so long to meet you. I thought it would be different.’ He had the same wistful tone he’d used when letting me in to see Michael in the Drying Room. ‘You really care about him, don’t you?...I didn’t really have brothers growing up.’”

Jeremy Cunningham has wanted desperately to be reunited with and accepted back into the Cunningham family. This desire to be a “true” Cunningham is so strong that Jeremy is willing to kill to be like the others. Here, Ernie understands this desire, recognizing the extent to which Jeremy longed for the bond they could not have while growing up as Jeremy was ransomed.

“‘If you’re so desperate to belong, we’re all here.’ I spread my arms. ‘Why kill Michael?’

‘Michael was supposed to be like me.’ He [Jeremy] said it mournfully. ‘I mean, one day there’s a man I don’t know telling me I’m a Cunningham, and then I’m seeing in the news that a Cunningham has killed him. Then I start researching Robert, and he killed that Brian Clarke, and I started to think that maybe I wasn’t so alone after all, that I wasn’t the only one who felt…different.’”

Jeremy’s desperation to belong to the Cunningham family drives him to murder. This willful murder is ironic because no other Cunningham feels pride for the deaths they have caused. Some of them feel shame and some feel that, though unfortunate, the deaths are justifiable, but only Jeremy seems to truly relish these killings. In feeling like an outsider, Jeremy is determined to fit in, yet he ends up as the Cunninghams’ enemy.

“Sofia’s theory held: The Black Tongue is announcing themselves. They want us to know they’re here.

Jeremy thought he’d found his place in a family of killers. The sergeant’s death was no more than a dead bird brought to a door by a feral cat. An offering.”

Jeremy’s killing of the police sergeant is both utilitarian and symbolic. It provides Jeremy with a means to be present on the resort grounds, as he masquerades as a police officer investigating a suspicious death. Symbolically, though, in Jeremy’s eyes, the murders he commits are not only steps along the path toward the Cunninghams but also proof that he is “one of them.”

“I pictured Jeremy, sitting against the wall of Alison Humphrey’s thick-aired apartment, toilet door closed, looking at his trembling, ashen hands, having just learned about his real family. We were easy to research online. Everyone knew what type of family we were. Michael, Robert, Katherine—and later Sofia—theirs were all public incidents, after which they were reported as having blood on their hands. We were infamous, in the media and police circles. Jeremy had found us, steadied his hands and thought, I’m not so different after all.”

Ernie seeks to understand his brother’s, Jeremy’s, logic, which appears illogical on its surface. It is ironic that, in Jeremy’s desperation to be accepted by his family, his chosen method is to harm them. It does not appear that Jeremy himself recognizes this irony. Ernie’s musing on this irony once again raises the question of what qualifies a person as a “killer.” Audrey insists that having killed someone does not make one a “killer.” By this logic, then, the Cunninghams are not killers, and Jeremy’s actions do not make him one of them.

“‘Do you dream of choking?’ he [Jeremy] asked.

‘Sometimes,’ I admitted. I understood the ash, the choking, the torture, now. That repressed trauma leaking through, of being trapped in that car. The things that he couldn’t remember but bubbled up to haunt him. I can’t breathe when I get angry.”

Jeremy’s method of killing is symbolic, though he may be unaware of this symbolism. His near death by suffocation as a child marks the remainder of his life and is something he and Ernie share (though it seems Ernie has never explicitly examined the significance of this event in his own life). Ernie’s “speeding up” of Jeremy’s death parallels the way Michael acted in the death of Alan Holton.