Book of Night

“Psychics were therapists for people who couldn’t admit they needed therapy. They were magic for people who desperately needed a little magic, back before magic was real.”

In the novels’ world, shadow magic is akin to new technology; a pre-magical world exists within living memory, enhancing the idea of a widespread cultural shift. Almost instantly upon magic’s arrival, people crave its manifestations, which help them process their internalized traumas and fears.

“Is Magic the New 1%? Hollywood Actress Starts New Shadow Trend. Rip Out Cravings for Junk Food at the Root. Most Useful Shadow Alterations For New Moms. Is Removing Desire the New Lobotomy?”

These headings are intentionally reminiscent of clickbait articles encountered in the real online world. The novel parallels its system of magic to social media fads and influencer culture, which gives the story a dystopian sense of potential reality. Black bases the effects of her magical system on real-world events to deepen the novel’s sense of authenticity and to highlight The Danger of Wellness Trends.

“If there were a different set of rules for the rich, Lionel Salt operated without rules at all.”

The Insularity of the Wealthy is a recurring thread throughout the novel, as Charlie comes to recognize the power and protection that status can buy. This positions Salt as an even greater evil, one who has transcended even the status of the most elite to become something near-mythic.

“In the hours before a job, adrenaline kicked in. She was alert, focused. As though she only truly came awake when there was a puzzle to solve, a potential triumph outside the grinding pattern of days.”

Charlie approaches thievery and manipulation like its own kind of magic. Having escaped her underprivileged background through cunning, she displays intelligence in numerous ways. Here, she is energized by the potential to exercise her mind; she is also smart enough to recognize the limitations and futility of the daily grind.

“She stared at someone who was herself and not herself. She felt a little giddy at the thought of sliding into a different life.”

This moment, which takes place in Charlie’s childhood, marks her first introduction to what will become her new life. Throughout the novel, the reader sees Charlie take on new personas and step into other roles. Here, Charlie experiences this exhilaration for the first time as a way of imagining herself into an alternate existence—something that connects her to the people who imbue their shadows with sapience.

“Much of the contemporary practice of gloaming was developed on message boards and locked forums, when finally people all over the world with quickened shadows realized they weren’t alone.”

This social evolution mirrors the real-world development of neopagan and spiritual movements, such as Wicca and Therianism. Prior to the 1990s, practitioners of the novel’s nontraditional beliefs worked independently or gathered surreptitiously after connecting through libraries or community notice boards. Here, the narrator presents the authentic process of online spaces forming communities of people who would not have been able to connect in real life because of distance.

“She thought of the constellation of names—Paul Ecco, the Hierophant, Hermes, Edmund Carver, Lionel Salt.”

This overview of the novel’s major players gives the reader the chance to catch up with Charlie’s investigation. The word choice “constellation”—here used to illustrate the sometimes loose connections between the people whom Charlie has implicated in the various crimes and conspiracies she pursues—implies the night, alchemy, and hidden meanings. The mixture of names, nicknames, and titles highlights the ways different fantasy traditions influence the novel: Hermes is the ancient Greek messenger god, the Hierophant is a tarot card, and the suggestive name of Paul Ecco mirrors the way shadows are echoes of their hosts in the novel.

“Along her inner arm was the word ‘fearless’ in looping cursive letters, except the tattooist had spaced them oddly so that it looked as though it said ‘fear less.’”

Charlie vacillates between consciously defining her future and letting authority figures direct or manipulate her into doing their bidding. Here, her two modes of being intersect. While she does not direct the tattoo artist into making the ink carry a double meaning, the accidentally punning spacing, which makes her tattoo have two meanings—a state of being (“fearless”) and a command (“fear less”)— drives her to decide to overcome her fears by leaning into her con artist persona.

“This is the problem with celebrating the parasitic one percent. It’s okay if he’s a murderer so long as he knows all the right people.”

In this social media post, a commenter acknowledges The Insularity of the Wealthy and the way the law does not treat society equally. The irony of the situation is that the comment is posted on a public forum, rather than whispered in secret; however, this openness does nothing to affect the reality of a broken system. The corrupt and unpunished practices of the elites connect this novel to the noir detective genre, which often features powerful people and institutions abusing power in systemically harmful ways.

“If a gloamist puts some of themselves into their shadow, they can create a separate entity which holds energy. The shadow becomes a mirror self, reflected self, second self, upside-down self.”

This line alludes to the therapeutic concept of shadow work. It presents the idea that the shadow is a dark reflection of the user—a projection of their inner nature. This moment also foreshadows the revelation of Vince’s true identity as the former shadow of Remy Carver.

“She’d been so busy trying to make sure Vince didn’t see behind her masks that she didn’t notice he was all mask.”

The projection of a false self is a recurring motif throughout the novel. Charlie masks herself through costumes and adapted personas as a form of emotional self-defense. As she acknowledges here, those choices protect her but also blind her to the similar defenses of those around her.

“Rand used to say that con artists lived on the edges of society, smiles firmly in place no matter how bad things got. It had seemed romantic. But now Charlie saw the vast insecurity that fed it. The constant need to be the cleverest. The knowledge that no one wins every time becoming more dire than warning.”

Romanticizing con artistry is a tradition that is rooted in trickster figures from folklore the world over, who are usually valorized for their ability to pull one over on the powerful, shirk labor, and profit without expending effort. It would have been easy to seduce a child like Charlie into a life of crime by highlighting the psychological rewards of succeeding at this kind of deception; as an adult, Charlie comes to see the reality behind the idealized façade but cannot shake its allure.

“I am changing. The sparks are doing something. I am having trouble going back to sleep when Remy doesn’t need me. I am restless. Something is wrong with me. Something is right with me.”

This is the only chapter in the novel that’s told through a first-person point of view to communicate a shift in voice and tone. Red thinks entirely in single-clause sentences with simplistic observations that highlight his inexperience with this new state of being—being corporeal rather than two-dimensional.

“Salt’s smile grew as he studied her expression. She had the sinking suspicion that he enjoyed her hating him. It was another kind of power.”

This moment illuminates the different ways that power can manifest in interpersonal relationships. Salt’s obvious source of power is his wealth and social status; however, he also draws power by inflicting powerlessness on others. Charlie’s hatred shows that he affects her without her permission or control.

“That was just her nature. Charlie Hall, Maker of Mistakes. Patron Saint of Disaster.”

Charlie often internally gives herself titles and positions that puncture her ego. This illustrates how deeply her trauma has affected her self-perception. However, by using phrases like “Patron Saint” or “Maker,” Charlie retains her sense of intellectual superiority as well—she is not simply someone who screws up but is so effective at errors that she has earned a capitalized status from it. These nicknames echo the novel’s other titled entities, such as the Hierophant or the Cabal; rather than convey portent, Charlie’s self-mockery deflates and elevates at the same time.

“It’s a delicate business, to act clever enough to be taken seriously and still make him feel like he can screw her over.”

Charlie relies on many tricks to succeed in conning people. Here, she uses gender stereotypes to perfect her showmanship, acting as a woman who is interesting enough to pay attention to but banking on the fact that her “delicacy” will be taken as unthreatening. It’s worth noting that this balance is exactly what Charlie leans into at the novel’s climax, when her plan will be to both be taken seriously and let Salt feel like he’s in control until she brings him down.

“He loved Adeline’s cheerful sociopathy. It reminded him of her father sometimes, but where his was bent toward conquering the universe, hers was bent toward fun.”

Although Adeline and Lionel Salt are primarily portrayed as being at odds, there are scattered instances in which their family bond is shown. Her approach to “sociopathy” is arguably worse than Salt’s because, while his is an exercise in controlled order, hers is pure chaos. This sets Adeline up to be a major antagonist in this novel’s next installment.

“It takes bravery to be an adventurer, […] And what better adventure than the discovery of our true selves?”

Charlie and Odette discuss The Influence of the Past and the capacity to break away from that influence. This line of dialogue implies that there is comfort in the familiarity of one’s experiences, even ones riddled with trauma; Odette acknowledges that leaving that trauma behind to embrace a new future is an act of courage.

“But children named everything. They named teddy bears and goldfish in duck ponds and pieces of gum on the sidewalk. Of course Vince was going to name his shadow.”

The power of names is addressed a few times within the novel, most notably regarding Charlie’s nickname “The Charlatan.” Here, Charlie rationalizes Vince’s decision (which is actually Edmund’s, although she conflates the two) to name his shadow as part of the all too human impulse to give names to anything meaningful. However, the established mechanics of shadow magic hold that naming something is also an act of creation—by giving his shadow a name, Edmund Carver shaped its life into being.

“Charlie had worked enough jobs that she ought to trust the tug of intuition, that antenna inside her attuned to wrongness.”

This moment positions Charlie’s experience as a con artist as its own kind of magic. Here, Charlie exhibits a “sixth sense” similar to the enhanced senses of the shadow workers. Her observation suggests that magic can manifest in different, sometimes subtle, ways.

“It was far from the only piece of disturbing art. A painting of a Roman king being devoured by his horses hung by a door.”

This grisly decor is both foreshadowing and situational irony. Very soon, Salt will be devoured by his own shadow—a fate that parallels the depiction of this fictional king’s demise. It also suggests that Salt is blind to the warning it presents and unable to perceive the concept of his own downfall.

“I was always the part of him that took care of things when he wasn’t able to manage. I was given everything that made him uncomfortable—the desire to cause pain, the terror at what Salt made us do, the ability to intuit how other people felt when the bad stuff happened. I was made to be strong, so he didn’t have to be.”

In the novel, several moments hint at the deep connection between Remy and Red. Unlike many gloamists and their shadows, theirs is not a dynamic of unbalanced status; Red feels a fraternal protective instinct to guard Remy from the horrors of his family. This sets up Vince’s feeling of betrayal during the novel’s cliffhanger denouement.

“The absence hadn’t just shut a door inside her mind; it shut a door on a potential future. She wasn’t going to be a gloamist. She hadn’t been sure she wanted to be, but still.”

The novel explores the process of the plot ending somewhat metafictionally here, as varying possibilities converge into a singular future. This image of doors closing is a common metaphor for what happens to potential timelines when choices are made.