58 pages • 1 hour read
Elle CosimanoFinlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Women’s Networks of Support
One of the key thematic arguments made by the novel is that women depend on their support network of other women, particularly when faced with men like Steven, who use their power to undermine women’s happiness and security. Cosimano highlights this theme through Finn’s relationships with the women in her life and how they contrast with her relationship with Steven.
Cosimano develops Steven’s character and his relationship with Finn as a contrast to her relationships with women. Not only does he fail to support his children financially, but he has also taken Finn’s rightful financial assets, leaving her to support two young children on a novelist’s salary. Steven then knowingly uses this financial leverage to force Finn to capitulate to his demands. He also works to undermine her on a personal level, implying that her judgment about people is bad and that she and the children are not safe in the house with Vero. Cosimano also illustrates how Steven’s behavior is not just focused on Finn: Both Theresa and Bree have been manipulated and cast aside by him. This characterization of Steven and his lack of support contrasts sharply with the portraits of the women and their relationships.
The network of female relationships in the novel differs greatly from Finn’s relationship with Steven. Throughout the novel, the women turn to each other for support. Theresa turns to Aimee and her mother when she is in danger. Theresa’s mother hides her when she is a fugitive and even buries her estranged husband and covers up his death to protect her daughter. Bree’s mother sets fire to Steven’s trailer in a fit of anger, and Finn’s own mother assumes an online identity, “FedUp,” to vent her anger and frustration at Steven. The novel’s central conflict even hinges on a women’s support network in the form of an online forum, illustrating how Cosimano has woven this theme throughout the narrative.
This theme is most illustrated through Finn’s relationship with Vero. The two women trust and love one another unconditionally. Finn says, of her relationship with Vero, “Vero and I might not have known each other for long, or even very well, when she’d stumbled into the garage and helped me bury a body, but she [is] family now” (86). Even the revelation that Vero has lost Finn’s money doesn’t divide the women; Finn determines that they will figure it out together. Finn illustrates their deep bond at the end of the novel by hanging a Christmas stocking for Vero alongside her own, Delia’s, and Zach’s, reaffirming that Vero is now family. Throughout the novel, Finn and Vero provide each other with extraordinary support, leading Finn to point out that their friendship is actually a partnership. The novel continually centers women’s relationships throughout, showing through the web of interconnected relationships just how crucial this support network is.
The Irony and Absurdity of Life
Finlay Donovan Knocks ’Em Dead offers a distinctly different take on what could otherwise be grisly subject matter: the attempted assassination of her ex-husband. The tone of the novel’s title itself is an early announcement of the book’s intentions: It will be a cozy mystery that treats serious subjects—crime and murder—with irreverent humor. Throughout the novel, the ridiculous contradictions inherent in ordinary human lives are repeatedly illustrated. The opening scene itself is absurd, as Finn holds a funeral for Christopher, a goldfish. The juxtaposition of serious mourning clothes and eulogies against the relative insignificance of the recently acquired fish’s death establishes a comically ironic tone that will last throughout the novel.
Cosimano creates this sense of the absurd through Finn’s characterization and the plot itself. Finn’s life is full of these juxtapositions that reveal the absurdity of her life. She is a single mother juggling a career with preschool drop-offs, potty training, and Christmas decorating, yet somehow, she has become entangled with the Russian mafia. The stakes of this contrast are heightened by the fact that her sister, Georgia, and love interest Nick are both police officers. The story’s plot also highlights the absurdity of Finn’s circumstances: After Finn finds people discussing contract killings in a forum where women innocuously swap coupons and complain about their husbands, she accidentally implicates herself in a firebombing and impersonates a mob lawyer. Specific scenes also contribute to this sense of the absurd, as when Finn defends herself with a plunger, dripping wet and wrapped in a small Disney princess towel, or when she carts a human torso from hiding place to hiding place while she tries to prevent her ungrateful and deceitful ex-husband’s murder.
This sense of the absurd is not only illustrated through Finn’s life. The plot twist at the end of the novel—that it is actually Finn’s own mother who accidentally set this chain of events in motion—adds another layer of absurdity and irony to the story. Susan does not mean to set off a series of near disasters for her daughter; ironically, with her posts as FedUp, she intends only to protest the stress that Steven has created for Finn, not to create more stress for her daughter. This distance between Susan’s intentions and results is another illustration of life’s ironies and absurdities. With these strategies, Cosimano lightens the tone of what might otherwise be a dark mystery while also highlighting the general absurdity of everyday life.
The Necessity of Resilience and Determination
Finn’s experiences demonstrate how important it is, when life gets messy and overwhelming, to bounce back and keep forging ahead toward one’s goals. In addition to the daily challenges faced by any single parent, Finn begins the novel with serious money problems and a custody battle against her sleazy ex-husband. She is seriously behind in writing her novel and worried about her relationship with Julian, Vero’s mysterious behavior, and a potential threat to Steven’s life. Although she sometimes struggles to prioritize and organize in the face of so many competing demands, Finn is an upbeat and determined person. She does not shut down, give in to self-pity, or rail against her circumstances. Instead, she looks for solutions and is successful in the end, highlighting the importance of resilience—Finn’s perseverance is what makes her life work.
From the opening moments of the novel, Finn displays resilience; when she discovers the threat against Steven, she does not simply throw up her hands and decide that there is nothing she can do. She immediately begins investigating FedUp’s identity. When “EasyClean” also enters the picture, complicating matters, Finn bounces back from her shock quickly and intervenes to slow down any agreement between the two posters. When she and Vero search Steven’s trailer, she is not deterred by the locked door, the security system, or the phone call from the security company—she finds a way around each obstacle and keeps going. When she links the forum to Feliks and Irina refuses to ask Feliks to take the site down, she again does not give up—she poses as Kat to get into the jail to ask Feliks herself. Similarly, when the van breaks down outside the motel, she poses as Irina’s assistant and secures the Aston Martin. In the end, Finn’s persistence pays off, and she eliminates the threat to Steven, highlighting how her perseverance is the key to her success.
Finn’s resilience and determination pay off in the other areas of her life as well. Although she is investigating the threat against Steven, she continues to work toward other goals as well. She persists in getting Vero to open up to her, leading to the revelations of Vero’s money troubles, which they can then begin to address. In addition, even though her life is consumed with this current mystery, she continues to chip away at her novel. In these areas, Finn’s success also highlights the importance of resilience. She ends the story in a much better position on nearly all fronts. Her new novel is nearly finished and promises to be a great success. She knows what has been troubling Vero, their relationship is stronger than ever, and she even has a plan to deal with their financial woes. Steven has stopped fighting her over custody, and their relationship is more equal and on stable footing. Finn’s life may still be messy and full of competing obligations, but because of her persistent focus on her goals, it is also markedly improving, illustrating the novel’s assertion that resilience and determination lead to success.
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By Elle Cosimano
