Content Warning: This section of the guide contains descriptions of sexual violence, domestic abuse, and murder.

Many of the story’s events are driven by the protagonist’s focus on writing or the sudden appearance of manuscript excerpts, and both are indicative of various characters’ need for control and their willingness to exploit others for their own gain. Although Anna’s novel, The Afterword, is ostensibly “a tribute to Jake [Bonner]: her lover, her partner, and, as it turn[s] out, her teacher” (23), the existence of the novel symbolizes Anna’s need for control. Mirroring her public version of her life story, her novel features a woman who marries a successful novelist shortly before he dies by suicide. Thus, by writing the novel, Anna gains autonomy over her own life story and cements her fabricated identity as Anna in the literary world and in contemporary culture. The book’s publication also affirms the protagonist’s current identity as Anna and affords her the success and self-worth that she has craved since she was a girl trapped in her parents’ Vermont home. Thus, The Afterword becomes a manifestation of Anna’s desperation to dictate her own identity and fate.

Just as The Afterword reflects Anna’s focus on manipulating and exploiting public opinion about her, Evan Parker’s manuscript is also symbolic of exploitation, for it represents his willingness to use the story of his sister’s trauma for his own gain.