The Last Word

Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of mental health conditions, suicidal ideation, child death, and substance use disorder.

Emma is the protagonist of The Last Word. At the beginning of the novel, she is struggling to process the grief of losing her infant daughter, an event that has caused her and her husband Shawn to become estranged. Following her daughter’s death, Emma moves to Strand Beach and takes a housesitting gig, dropping off the grid without Shawn’s knowledge. Her trauma leads her to ignore her physical needs and numb her thoughts by compulsively reading e-books of questionable quality. Emma doesn’t like to talk and is often very quiet, and her inability to communicate holds her back from processing her grief.

Her unresolved grief turns into suicidal ideation, which causes Deek and Kane (Howard) to consider her “Easy prey. A human feeder fish” (128). Adams compares Emma to a fish because she lives in a house that has many windows, just like an aquarium. However, when Kane attacks Emma, she finds the will to fight for her life and discovers that after losing her daughter, she has no fear of violent men.