When you're not seeing much conflict, or diversity of thought or speech patterns between characters. Lots of generalized language in which the men try to represent all men, the women all women. I think we've all read books in which it becomes clearly apparent early on that we're reading the author's thoughts and feelings, rather than those of a fully-realized fictional character. Some characters are more resilient than others - my dear Frank - and some, like Toby in The Witch Elm, are left as scraped-clean shells.if he had much substance to begin with. That sense of life rushing by as a great locomotive, and our narrator sitting pinned down beneath the weight of all that they know, world upended by an experience that reached into the very core of their consciousness and rearranged all the carefully-stacked boxes there. Save The Secret Place, The Trespasser, and The Searcher, all of them end on a melancholy, sometimes haunting note that I think of as uniquely Irish. They're deep-dive self-reflections in which the main character is forced examine all their preconceived notions, prejudices, and the way they see themselves. Hers are mysteries in which those trying to solve them learn more about themselves, their own faults and failures, than about those of the killer. "What am I?" is the refrain woven continuously throughout this novel, and, in variations, through all of French's novels, I'd posit.
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