History Literature / TheGhostWriter

* WidowWoman: Phyllis. Her husband Graham John Freeman died rather very early in the story.

Gerard’s boring life seems to brighten a little when he, by chance, obtains a penfriend from England named Alice Jessell, a mysterious IllGirl. Injured in the accident that killed both of her parents and confined her to a wheelchair, Alice refuses to either meet Gerard or send him a photo until she’s cured and walking again -- something that she admits will require a miracle. How she looks is left to Gerard’s rich imagination, and he conjures images of a pre-Raphaelite beauty with milky skin and cascades of coppery hair. As Gerard grows into adulthood, his friendship with Alice is a growing constant in his life as is his obsession with Viola and Staplefield. When his mother dies, Gerard sets off for England in search of Staplefield and Alice, with whom he now fancies himself deeply in love.

* IllGirl: Alice Jessell.

* CainAndAbel: [[spoiler:In the past Phyllis seduced Anne's fiancé and tried to kill her by exposing her to radiation from an X-Ray machine hidden in her room. Anne survived, but was horribly deformed by the radiation burns and the numerous surgeries necessary to keep the cancer from spreading across her head and body. When she finally dug up Phyllis's location, she sent her sister the manuscript for one of their grandmother's horror stories (in which similar events had occurred) in order to stoke her paranoia and started a LongDistanceRelationship with her teenaged son in order to manipulate his life, making Phyllis's last years miserable]].

* SingleTargetSexuality: Gerard's LongDistanceRelationship with Alice dominates his life to the point where by the time the main action of the book begins, he doesn't have any other deep relationships, romantic or friendly. [[spoiler:When revealing herself to have been "Alice" all along, Anne taunts him by pointing out how he could have had relationships with real women instead of chasing after his dream girl]].

* CainAndAbel: [[spoiler:In the past Phyllis seduced Anne's fiance and tried to kill her by exposing her to radiation from an X-Ray machine hidden in her room. Anne survived, but was horribly deformed by the radiation burns and the numerous surgeries necessary to keep the cancer from spreading across her head and body. When she finally dug up Phyllis's location, she sent her sister the manuscript for one of their grandmother's horror stories (in which similar events had occurred) in order to stoke her paranoia and started a LongDistanceRelationship with her teenaged son in order to manipulate his life, making Phyllis's last years miserable]].

* MamasBabyPapasMaybe: Subverted. [[spoiler:At first it seems that Gerard might be the child of Hugh Montfort, until you realize the numbers don't add up--Phyllis's affair was in 1949, and "our Gerard" was born in 1963 or -64. It turns out that the original Gerard died in infancy and ours was named after him. This means that Graham is likely his real father after all]].

* TragicVillain: [[spoiler:All of Anne's evil deeds are are vengeance for her jealous sister seducing her fiance and trying to kill her with radiation]].

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:Short of actually killing Gerald in their final confrontation, which he escapes by pure chance, Anne managed to pretty much sabotaged and ultimately destroyed the relationship between him and his mother by sending "The Revenant" to her, thus turning Phyllis into a [[MyBelovedSmother paranoid wreck who believed Anne would kidnap him or worse if she let him leave the house]]. And of course, by manipulating him via "Alice", he essentially became her puppet for twenty-two years of his life. Before she dies, she also learns to her joy that the child Phyllis had with Hugh died in infancy--something she only learned thanks to Gerard's research]].

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:Short of actually killing Gerald in their final confrontation, which he escapes by pure chance, Anne managed to pretty much destroy the relationship between him and his mother by sending "The Revenant" to her, thus turning Phyllis into a [[MyBelovedSmother paranoid wreck who believed Anne would kidnap him or worse if she let him leave the house]]. And of course, by manipulating him via "Alice", he essentially became her puppet for twenty-two years of his life]].

* TheGhost: Alice never appears in the story until the climax, and she only interacts with Gerard via letters before then. There's also Abigail Hamish, an old lady who claims she knows about Phyllis' childhood.

* SingleTargetSexuality: Gerard's LongDistanceRelationship with Alice dominates his life to the point where by the time the main action of the book begins, he doesn't have any other deep relationships, romantic or friendly. [[spoiler:When revealing herself to have been "Alice" all along, Anne taunts him by pointing out how he could have had real relationships instead of chasing after his dream girl]].

* DomesticAbuse: From "The Ghost" story, Cordelia de Vere's paternal grandfather, Ruthven de Vere, was responsible for the FacialHorror that his wife, Imogen, suffered. Ironically, one of the main reasons for this is because he's convinced his wife was cheating on him with his friend, Henry St. Clair. She's not, but he doesn't want to listen.

* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: [[spoiler:It's actually rather hard to decide whether Gerard's conception was consensual or not. What's known is that Phyllis aggressively seduced her sister's fiancé, Hugh Montfort, leading to their affair and the first Gerard's conception. When Anne discovered this, Phyllis was naked and "on his top, riding on him", and he appears to be unmoving (unconscious?). Yet, Hugh is mostly blamed instead of Phyllis, who seduced him. He tried to apologize, Anne doesn't want to forgive him, and it's ambiguous whether Anne or Phyllis caused his death]].

* TheBadGuyWins: [[spoiler:Short of actually killing Gerald in their final confrontation, which he escapes by pure chance, Anne managed to pretty much destroy the relationship between him and his mother by sending "The Revenant" to her, thus turning Phyllis into a paranoid wreck who she believed would kidnap him or worse]].

* BitCharacter / FlatCharacter: Gerard's father, Graham, has very little appearance and importance in the story and it's unbelievably easy to miss when he died. He died sometime in Gerard's mid or late teens. [[spoiler:Unsurprisingly, it's later revealed that Gerard's biological father is somebody else]].

* ChildByRape: [[spoiler:Inverted with Gerard. See DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale]].

* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: [[spoiler:It's actually rather hard to decide whether Gerard's conception was consensual or not. What's known is that Phyllis aggressively seduced her sister's fiancé, Hugh Montfort, leading to their affair and Gerard's conception. When Anne discovered this, Phyllis was naked and "on his top, riding on him", and he appears to be unmoving (unconscious?). Yet, Hugh is mostly blamed instead of Phyllis, who seduced him. He tried to apologize, Anne doesn't want to forgive him, and it's ambiguous whether Anne or Phyllis caused his death]].

* MyBelovedSmother: Phyllis is fiercely overprotective and possessive on her son. She is the most responsible for her son's FriendlessBackground. [[spoiler:He's all she has left of the man she ''truly'' loved, after all]]

** Gerard's "father" died rather very early in the story. His mother, Phyllis, also died right before the start of the novel's second-half.

* BaldOfEvil: [[spoiler:Alice/Anne's true form. In life Phyllis had tried to kill her by secretly exposing her to radiation from a Victorian-era fluoroscope. The burn scars and surgeries to save her from the cancer she developed left her head and hair destroyed but for one eye.]].

* DoubleStandardRapeFemaleOnMale: [[spoiler:It's actually rather hard to decide whether Gerard's conception was consensual or not. What's known is that Phyllis aggressively seduced her sister's fiancé, Hugh Montfort, leading to their affair and Gerard's conception. When Anne discovered this, Phyllis was naked and "on his top, riding on him". Yet, Hugh is mostly to blame instead of Phyllis, who seduced him. He tried to apologize, Anne doesn't want to forgive him, and it's ambiguous whether Anne or Phyllis caused his death]].

* LifeImitatesArt: In-universe, many of the stories of Viola Hatherley seem to have remarkable relevance to Gerard's relationship with Alice, as many of them are about a character becoming obsessed with someone or something unreachable. [[spoiler:With the reveal of Alice as Anne Hatherley, Phyllis's sister and Viola's other granddaughter, it seems that Anne was inspired by these stories to create an unreachable character for Gerard to become obsessed with as part of her revenge upon Phyllis]].