marginalia 🌿

Miracle Creek

March 24, 2024
Categories: books

(spoilers)

I enjoyed Miracle Creek because of its detailed exploration of the effects of lies, and people’s emotions, thought processes, self-justifications and excuses, and rationalization. As readers, we navigated the inner thoughts of people as they repeatedly acted cowardly, weak, duplicitous, and gave in to their impulses. This felt realistic and satisfying in contrast to many stories where characters act with the unrelenting determination of plot advancement.

I also enjoyed the exploration of lying, and the unintended downstream effects lies they can cause. The book covers the trial of a fire at a medical facility that caused deaths and injuries, and as we uncover the layers of “truth” along with the characters, there are many instances where a character lies in a moment and then justifies their lie with “well, it wouldn’t have made a difference; it wouldn’t have stopped the events that caused the fire to be started.” But the compounded effects of everyone’s lies and misunderstandings caused a tragedy. Is there really such a thing as a harmless lie? I read that Kim used to be a litigator, and read an interview where they said they especially loved being in the courtroom, and I felt like the courtroom scenes were alive and vibrant with theatrics and performance. We already know this from news and popular media, but Kim demonstrated the disturbing power of telling a convincing narrative. We (along with the jury) see Elizabeth as a cruel and sadistic mother, and then sympathize with her as trying her best to get the best medical treatment for her son that she could, in turns as the two attorneys presented their narratives.

I had some assorted thoughts of each character, which I’ve collected below:

Young:

• I thought she was a complicated character. I liked her empathy and compassion, and her strength of will and sense of duty. I felt that I understood her choices, that her decisions (working long hours and being unable to see her daughter during her waking hours) caused her to have a strained relationship with her child but were made out of financial necessity. There were no options available that would have allowed them to live a comfortable life in America, and they immigrated in hopes that her daughter and future generations would have a chance at social mobility.
• Finally, I appreciated that she came to the realization that the best thing she could do for her daughter’s life was convincing her daughter to confess, rather than try to sweep it under the rug to “protect” her, because she would never be able to find peace and it would become a corrupting weight on her psyche. I admired her integrity to choose to come clean and live with honesty.

Pak:

• He tries so hard to fulfill the role he thinks society expects of him, and do what’s “right” based on that framework. He wants to be the hero and protector of his family, but in doing that he erases the agency of his wife and child. As family and people who care about him, they would probably prefer to work through difficult situations together, rather than watch Pak sacrifice himself over and over while trying to prevent them from experiencing discomfort.

Matt:

• So selfish. Horrible. I felt that he lacked differentiation and ability to reflect on his own actions. He seemed more concerned about his identity being tarnished with “a rape/pedophilia thing” (in his words) than the actual harm he caused when he sexually assaulted a child. He never even apologized to her or tried to take responsibility for his actions. It seemed like the trajectory of the character would be to the rest of his life suppressing his memories of this as some weird shameful/embarrassing stain in his past.
• I attended a book club recently where only three people showed up and we (all women) agreed that Matt was despicable and so selfish. Another attendee joked about how it might’ve been interesting to hear some male perspectives on his behaviour (lol). We agreed that he certainly deserved more “punishment” than his wife divorcing him.
• Since he seemed to get so many chapters in this book yet faced zero consequences at the end, I started wondering if the author was trying to make a statement based on abusers she encountered while she was a litigator…

Elizabeth:

• I was surprised to read Goodreads reviews sympathizing with Elizabeth as just a high-strung mother trying her best. I could see that she was experiencing loneliness and hurt, but as the adult in the situation, it’s her responsibility to seek therapy and ways to self-regulate in order to not harm her child. Her child can’t be the collateral damage in her own search for identity and purpose. I thought it seemed clear that she did not view Henry as an individual person with agency. My heart broke when they finally presented video recordings of Henry repeating that “a cat scratched [him]” and “the cat hates [him]” and how much he actually understood about the abuse he was receiving from Elizabeth and how she resented him.

Teresa, Janine, Mary, the kids (Henry, TJ, Rosa):

• I wonder how the author decided which characters to give a voice to, and which characters we only observed through the perception of others. It didn’t feel like we really got to much about know Teresa, Janine, or Mary, and we didn’t hear the kids’ perspective at all, except for a few minutes of recorded footage of Henry that were played in court. I really wanted to know more about the kids’ understanding of what was going on.