Pieces of Her

Throughout Pieces of Her, the motif of the “bad guy” underscores Karin Slaughter’s exploration of Pieces of Identity and illustrates the superficiality of societal labels. Slaughter introduces the idea of bad guys early on, when Detective Palazzolo interviews Andy after the diner shooting. She repeats the notion that Jonah Helsinger, the shooter, was “a really bad guy” (36). This reasoning seems important to Palazzolo: “Bad guy. Palazzolo kept repeating the phrase, like it was okay that Helsinger was dead. Like he had gotten what he deserves” (37). Palazzolo’s assessment negates the fact that Helsinger was killed by Laura (albeit in self-defense) and was in some ways, a victim (of cult mentality). Andy understands that Palazzolo is using the idea of a bad guy to dehumanize Helsinger, so she can retain her idea of who does, or does not, deserve compassion. Slaughter develops this motif further when Andy, who recognizes the superficiality of Palazzolo’s assessment, nonetheless engages in the same practice after learning the name of the intruder she killed. She offsets her guilt by “remind[ing] herself that Samuel Godfrey Beckett was, in Detective Palazzolo’s parlance, a bad guy” (110).

Jane’s (Laura’s) story touches on this motif as well, but from a different perspective: Neither Jane nor Andrew consider themselves, or The Cult of Nick, to be bad guys, despite the fact that they are involved in terrorist plots. As Andrew says to Jane, about Nick: “Once they figure out he’s playing them, they’ll move on to investigating the real bad guys” (237). To them, Martin Queller and other corporate heads are the bad guys, highlighting the subjective nature of this notion. Laura is prejudiced against police and distrusts her handler, US Marshal Mike. In fact, when Andy was considering becoming a police dispatcher, she had, at first, “been repulsed by the idea because she’d had it in her head that cops were bad guys” (17)—an idea that may have been instilled in her by her mother. Overall, Slaughter uses the motif of the bad guy to explore the complexity of identity, and the superficiality of labels like “bad” and “good.”