The Quiet Tenant

“Here is this beautiful man, who has done so much for our town. Who lost his wife a month ago. Sitting at my bar, alone, even though he doesn’t drink. I have to think that if there is a gaping hole at the center of his life, then maybe maintaining this habit has brought him some form of solace. I have to think this—our shared silences, our silent routine—means something to him, too. Everyone in town has an Aidan Thomas story. If you’re a kid, he saved your ass moments before the Christmas parade. He showed up when you needed him, tool belt cinched around his hips, to fix your wobbly sleigh, right your reindeer’s antlers.”

In keeping with many of the documented commonalities manifested by serial murderers, Michallon has created in Aidan the embodiment of an aphorism often uttered in disbelief by friends and acquaintances after a murderer’s crimes are uncovered: “But he seemed like such a nice guy!” In an interview, Michallon recalled that while composing Emily’s chapters, she felt as if she were writing a romance novel instead of a work of suspense (“Chapters & Chat: QUIET TENANT with Clemence Michallon.” YouTube, uploaded by Kelly Hook Reads Books, 20 July 2023). This juxtaposition in tone and perception of Aidan as conveyed to the reader in “Rachel” and Emily’s polarizing chapters illustrates the level of success that Aidan has achieved in his dedication to concealing his depravity.

“Like a dare with himself. Like he knew that if he didn’t do it then, he might chicken out forever. His eyes widened as mine shut. The air of amazement on his face: Shock that he was actually doing this, and that my body responded in the correct manner. Shock that it was a real thing—that if you squeezed someone’s throat hard enough, they would in fact stop moving. I remember realizing, while he killed me: if he gets away with this, he’ll think he can get away with anything.”

The three primary voices that interweave to collectively paint the portrait of Aidan as a serial killer are also supported by a “chorus” of sorts, which consists of the women he successfully murdered. Each brutally visceral scene offers a vivid glimpse of Aidan’s activities as he orchestrates the final moments of their lives in the service of his self-gratification. As Michallon herself states, Aidan “never gets to show all of himself to one person at once” (“Chapters & Chat”), and this dynamic suggests that even “Rachel’s” detailed impression of him remains incomplete despite all the horrors she has endured. The murdered victims’ interludes therefore provide essential exposition, for these scenes allow readers to fully understand the violence that Aidan is capable of perpetrating, thus increasing the tension of the novel exponentially.

“If telling the truth were an option in the shed, you’d say, ‘You wouldn’t get it. It’s embedded in you, once you’ve been a girl. […] You feel their pain. You want to lift them into your arms and carry them over to the end point, sparing their feet from the thorns that drew blood from your own. Every girl in the world is a little bit me, and every girl in the world is a little bit mine. Even yours. Even the one that’s half of you. I care, you would tell him, because I need the part of you that made her.”

In this passage that reveals “Rachel’s” inner thoughts, the Shared Empathy Between Women is immediately apparent, and Aidan’s lack of empathy is also revealed to be a significant weakness that prevents him from accurately assessing others’ value systems or apprehending their motives. He cannot imagine why “Rachel” would care about his daughter, because he cannot understand what it means to feel an emotional connection to others based solely on shared experiences. Cecilia, even in abstract, functions as source of hope, for she allows “Rachel” to see Aidan as someone who might be capable of exhibiting human compassion. In this moment, however, “Rachel’s” only goal is to remain alive long enough to seize the opportunity to escape, and she seeks to exploit any vulnerability she can find while she waits for the right moment to make her move.

“You nod. He guides you to the door. No time to say goodbye. Just grab at whatever memories you can, days meshing into one another, five years turning into mud. One long stretch of the shed. A place of despair, of devastation, but in the end, it became what you knew. Here, you learned how to survive. This new house he’s taking you to, it’s full of uncertainty, the possibility of a mistake lurking in every corner. […] A tug in your chest, a devastating bitterness. You, and all the people gazing up at the same sky as you. […] A silent communion tearing you apart.”

“Rachel’s” experience in captivity has profoundly transformed her psyche and her instinctive behavior; in order to sustain some vestige of emotional stability, she has relied upon her memories of her life before the kidnapping, and every moment of relative safety that she is able to craft for herself comes only through great struggle. Thus, although she is grateful to finally leave the squalid shed, she also fears the escalation of danger that will come with the unpredictability of her new confinement within Aidan’s house.

“Your body is so present, so real under the yellow lighting. In the shed, in the gleam of the camping lantern, you couldn’t see its details—stretch marks like lightning bolts on the inside of your thighs, […] Bruises on your arms, stagnating pools of purple and blue in the crooks of your elbows. On your chest, a smattering of scars. Brutal years written across your skin.”

The depravation that Aidan initially managed to orchestrate in the controlled environment of the shed prevented “Rachel” from learning about the world around her and created a kind of rift between “Rachel” and her own body, as she was utterly stripped of its autonomy. Now, however, although she is still a prisoner, “Rachel’s” world has expanded exponentially simply because she is allowed to occupy more space. Through this change, she begins to acquire small bits of information that she otherwise would not have been able to discover; such developments ultimately provide her with the weapons she needs to effect her own escape.

“He heads back to the kitchen counter, his eyes fleeing from yours. There are times when he can’t look at you. Times that tell you that shame still lives somewhere inside this man. Buried and smothered and ignored, but shame all the same. You like to believe that it takes hold every once in a while. You like to believe that it burns him.”

“Rachel” attributes her continued survival to her ability to read Aidan’s behaviors and moods, adapting her own responses to mitigate flares in his temper and the accompanying escalation of violence which so often follows. Over the five years of her imprisonment, her resentment of him has taken on an element of disgust, because she hates that he violates her and takes the lives of other women. It is only in brief moments like this one that he displays any indication that he might comprehend that his actions are wrong, but such momentary displays do not constitute true remorse.

“She heard. She listened. After dinner, tonight—after she left the table in a huff—she went and took some from her personal stash. She wrote the note, slid the package under your dor. Her father must have told her to stay away from your room, but she didn’t care. She knows he hasn’t gone to the store yet. She knows you need help. She decided she had your back. She chose you over him.”

Cecilia is the first person, other than Aidan, that “Rachel” has had any human contact with in five years, and though Aidan has indicated that her interactions with Cecilia should not progress beyond basic cordiality, “Rachel” yearns for a connection with her 13-year-old housemate. “Rachel” is initially concerned that her self-consciousness might Cecilia avoid her, but when Cecilia slips the menstrual pads under her door, “Rachel” is overwhelmed by this simple gesture of kindness, particularly because it is rooted in a feminine empathy that Aidan would not understand.

“The town is still reeling from the disappearance of the missing woman. She was from the area. Everyone knows someone who knew her. She hasn’t been found. No one is saying it, but we know. We just do. We know that when she’s found—if she’s ever found—she won’t be alive.”

Aidan’s gradual loss of control sets the pacing for The Quiet Tenant. He has murdered nearly 10 women since the 1990s, yet the reaction of his community upon the disappearance of the “hiker” indicates that this event is particularly unusual for their area. Aidan’s careful planning has in the past allowed him to operate undetected, but mounting stressors cause him to act carelessly, choosing someone whose absence is immediately reported, and leaving behind evidence, presumably for the first time, in his failure to collect the victim’s shoe.

“After, when he’s pulling his pants back up, you study him. He’s in no rush to leave. There is an ease about him, a buoyancy. He’s in a good mood. […] Whoever scratched his back, you have to believe she is okay. You have to believe she is still alive. For a second, you are relieved. Then, your throat closes again. If he has her, does he need you? Or is he just playing with his food? […] There is a stranger outside. A stranger in danger. And she could be the end of you, too. Rule number three of staying alive outside the shed: If you have to be in his world, then you must be special. You must be the only one of you.”

“Rachel’s” impression of Aidan is singular; she is not the only woman who has been given a glimpse of his true nature, but she is the only one still left alive. When she discovers that Aidan is having sex with a consenting partner, she sees a unique opportunity, for in the past, Aidan has always confessed to his murders after the fact. Unlike Aidan, “Rachel” feels a sense of obligation and duty toward others, and she is forced to weigh the potential harm to herself that might arise should she attempt to act out in the service of sparing someone else the horrors that Aidan has planned for them.

“That was your mistake, the day I met you. You thought you would surprise me. You thought you would be the first bad thing to ever happen to me. But I knew how it worked. I was born in the city that killed Kitty Genovese; […] What Kitty Genovese taught me: when the world doesn’t look out for you, you can’t look out for others. […] So no, when you found me, it didn’t surprise me. Of course you found me. You had to happen to someone, and you happened to me.”

All of Aidan’s victims are women, and though the likelihood of falling prey to a serial killer is statistically low, “Rachel” has by this point in the novel recounted incidents from her own life and from historical examples—all of which illustrate that the perpetration of violence against women is ubiquitous. This passage illustrates “Rachel’s” reflections on the nature of murder itself, and it also demonstrates her inner strength and determination to survive her current circumstances.

“This is when he found you.

 He was going to kill you, but he didn’t.

 Things were happening to him. Things he couldn’t stop.

 Death was happening to him, to the family he had built. And there was nothing he could do about it.

 It must have unmoored him.

 He needed control. This is what it’s about for him. Deciding where a woman begins and where she ends. Deciding everything, and getting away with it.

 He got you. You were in the truck.

 He was going to kill you, but he didn’t.”

The short, choppy, and almost breathless nature of this passage emphasizes that the information it conveys is crucial to “Rachel’s” survival, for Aidan’s decision to keep her captive represents a significant departure from his usual routine. The new stressor in his life—Caroline’s cancer—is his motivation for doing so. Essentially, because of his fear that he cannot keep Caroline alive, he decides instead to keep “Rachel” alive, thus satisfying his appetite for sexual sadism while also mitigating his feeling of powerlessness. With this knowledge, it occurs to “Rachel” that he is capable of deviating from his intended course, and that she might therefore have more power to influence his behavior than she once imagined.

“You convinced yourself you couldn’t leave without her, but she wouldn’t let herself be saved. She ruined it. She ruined everything for you. And now you hate her. […] But now you see her, his kid. You’d be out of here if it wasn’t for her. You would have made it out. […] But you know and she knows, and it feels good, good to make her feel small, good to let her know how much she has disappointed you, how little she means to you now.”

Though “Rachel” has been degraded, beaten, and nearly starved to death under Aidan’s control, she hasn’t lost her humanity, and it is her initial conviction that Aidan is sexually abusing his daughter that renders her duty-bound to extract Cecilia from the house. In this passage, “Rachel’s” anger at Cecilia is really frustration at herself, for she has allowed her moral obligation to prevent her from being selfish enough to leave Cecilia behind.

“Shame rises in your stomach. You forgot. You have been so busy despising her, every cell of her, that you forgot everything you know about her and her dad. Footsteps down the hallway. His iron grip on her life. Everything he does, everything he hides from her. […] You step forward, wedge yourself between Cecelia and her father. Let you gaze meet his. Easy now. You lower yourself to take a closer look at the wound. […] Something ignites within you. You need it, desperately, the possibility of a rebirth in this house. Proof that the wounded can come back to life within these walls.”

“Rachel” is often unsettled by glimpses of Aidan’s influence over his daughter, but when she witnesses Cecilia holding the wounded puppy and begging her father to save it, she appreciates how different the 13-year-old is from her father. “Rachel” understands that Aidan’s chilling lack of empathy has the potential to wound in ways that do not leave physical scars, and as a responsible adult, she refuses to allow this lonely young girl to be deprived of the comfort and companionship she deserves to receive from her caretakers. “Rachel” is brave in this moment not just because she is emboldened by Cecilia’s humanity, but also because she is determined to craft an escape that also saves Cecilia, thereby leaving her integrity intact.

“This isn’t a natural environment for him. So exposed, so intrusive. You put a man like this in a place like that, he’s bound to turn into a powder keg. […] ‘Nice man, the judge.’ His elbow rests against the driver’s-side window, left hand hanging in the air, the other on the wheel. ‘People around here are like that. Very nice. Very trusting.’”

Aidan’s goal in driving “Rachel” through the quaint streets of downtown is to impress upon her how profoundly accepted he is in the surrounding community, and thus how impossible any escape will be for her. However, his underestimation of “Rachel” is made manifest in this passage, because instead of dwelling on the sense of defeat he attempted to inspire, “Rachel” uses this time wisely, gathering essential information. From a geographical standpoint, she anticipates how she might navigate the area alone if she were to free herself, and she also deduces that Aidan is outside of his comfort zone, and that this newfound suburban lifestyle is another weakness that she can potentially exploit.

“Something doesn’t make sense you to. Why let you roam around the house at all? […]

Cecilia.

What did she do the girl who reads, the girl who says please and thank you, the girl with him with so much love? The girl who wouldn’t dream of causing trouble, studious and disciplined and loyal?”

Before the move, “Rachel” and Cecilia existed in completely different realms in Aidan’s carefully compartmentalized world. When Aidan takes her under his roof, “Rachel” realizes that Cecilia is quickly maturing into the one woman in his life that he is unable to control, for her disobedience requires an entirely different approach that cannot employ the violence he is accustomed to using against his victims. He is more afraid of Cecilia getting in trouble and drawing attention to their lifestyle than he is of “Rachel” mustering the confidence to escape.

“Answers. I’m searching for answers. […] I lift pot one, two, three. Bingo. […] Am I really doing this? There’s someone inside. Someone who’s not him. Someone who didn’t come to the door. I hold my breath as the key slips into the lock. One last moment of hesitation—a story, I need a story. What’s it going to be? I thought I smelled smoke and wanted to make sure everything was all right?

Sure, why not. That’ll do.

The world stops spinning. I push the door open.”

Until this moment, Michallon has presented Emily’s obsession with Aidan as histrionic and naïve, but otherwise innocent: a fixation that is characterized by eagerness not transgression. In a suspenseful novel like The Quiet Tenant, however, such ill-advised actions transform mundane nosiness into an extremely dangerous activity, for Emily’s insatiable curiosity places her in close proximity to information that could spell her own demise if Aidan believes her to have penetrated his carefully crafted disguise of normalcy.

“The necklace. It looks just like—no.

But could it be?

She follows your confused stare. […]

Julie bought you the necklace for your nineteenth birthday. […] You wore the necklace every day until he took it from you. And now it’s here.

Your necklace—unique, the only bespoke piece of jewelry you have ever owned—has found you again.

[…] She smiles. Is he blushing? ‘Oh,’ she says. ‘It was a gift. From a…friend.’”

The plot around “Rachel’s” custom necklace is an inclusion of real-life serial killer behavior; and thus, Michallon’s knowledge of criminal behavior allows her to craft a sense of authenticity throughout the novel. Each woman in this scene thinks she knows exactly the nature of Aidan’s relationship to the other, but in reality, both “Rachel” and Emily have a warped view of each other, symbolized by Aidan’s presence within the scene, which drives a wedge between them.

“You see the first and the fourth and the second and the fifth—and then you. A you that feels more like a her, so different from the person you are now. Your knees quiver. You swallow, or try to. Your tongue rubs, dry, against the roof of your mouth. […]

A wave of nausea shakes you from deep within. Your lips twitch. He watched you. You always wondered how he had found you. If he knew you’d be there or if he had run into you by chance and seen an opportunity. Now you know. The photos confirm it.”

When “Rachel” finds Aidan’s stash of trophies and memorabilia pertaining to his victims, she learns more about him through examining these artifacts than he ever intentionally revealed over during the five years of her captivity. In this moment, when she realizes that Aidan stalked and chose her specifically, she feels not only a detachment from the woman she had been, but a sense of guilt at having allowed herself to become vulnerable enough to allow him the opportunity to attack and kidnap her.

“The shots are blurry, but you make out a silhouette and a bar and a crimson apron. One neat photo. Like an asteroid falling to earth. Her face. Her pretty face. You know her. Of course you know her. You met her right here in this house. She is the woman from the living room. The one who wore your necklace.

She is a project. A target.”

The Polaroids of Emily are not in Aidan’s basement storage boxes when “Rachel” first examines his collection; between the presence of her own pendant around Emily’s neck and the surveillance photos that Aidan has added in the interim, “Rachel” receives all the confirmation that she needs to become convinced that Aidan is planning to kill Emily. Aidan has apparently never killed anyone known to him, and this change in behavior indicates that Aidan is now willing to risk murdering someone directly connected to his personal life.

“‘You have some fucking nerve, you know that?’

You try to nod. Don’t try to explain it. Just let him speak.

You were lost. You were so fucking alone. I found you.’ A tug. ‘I’m the only reason you’re alive. You know what you’d be, without me?’

Nothing. You recite the words in your head so they won’t touch you when he says them. You’d be dead.

‘Nothing. You’d be dead.’ […]

‘I’m sorry,’ you say again. You could say it five hundred times if he needed you to. Sorry costs nothing.”

“Rachel” is as surprised as Aidan when she fights back against him a few nights before the Christmas party is supposed to take place. Aidan has not needed to repeat the mantra that “Rachel” has long since internalized, but when faced with her resistance, he invokes this same method of repetition, believing that nothing has truly changed and that it will be as effective as it always was. Instead, “Rachel’s impulse to act out in self-defense suggests that the preparations she has begun making have emboldened her and restored her sense of agency. The connections that she has made between Aidan’s changing environment and his slipping grasp on those around him have not yet given her the upper hand, but they have restored many of her instincts.

“There was the question of whether to wear his scarf. I didn’t want to be too obvious. Then again, he gave it to me. And it’s a good scarf. The kind that actually keeps you warm. I figured if I wore it, people would see. They might recognize it, his scarf around my neck, and connect some dots.

Plus, he said he would get it back at some point. Maybe that point is today. Maybe if I wore it, he’d talk to me.

I decided to go with the scarf.”

That Emily has the potential to appear trivial, desperate, and mundane in this chapter is Michallon’s way of depicting the contrast between her mindset and “Rachel’s” on the evening of the Christmas party. “Rachel” has decided that no other event is likely to present circumstances that might be equally favorable for staging her escape, and she has planned to abscond with Aidan’s truck, gun, Polaroids, and daughter in order to ensure her survival. Meanwhile, by contrast, Emily is ruminating over whether a knitted accessory will motivate Aidan to flirt with her, and the stark difference between her inner concerns and Aidan’s true nature creates a deep sense of dramatic irony within the text.

“‘That bitch,’ he says in a voice I don’t recognize. ‘I should have killed her a long time ago.’ […]

He leaps out of the car and runs.

After her is all I can think.

After the woman I saw.

And his daughter.

It’s the anchor of hope, the possibility of a misunderstanding.

We all say things, right? In the heat of the moment. Things we don’t mean. Things we regret.

He runs after her, I decide.

He runs after his daughter.”

Even after Aidan has violently gripped Emily’s wrist, tried to lure her deeper into his basement, and ragefully lamented not having killed someone, Emily is committed to deluding herself. She believes that she is still competing for Aidan’s affection against a woman who is apparently trying to get as far away from him as fast as she can. Michallon has established the rationale behind Emily’s willingness to make these excuses, all of which stem from her lonely childhood; however, in this moment, even such mitigating factors prove insufficient to justifying the degree of Emily’s willingness to believe the best of Aidan, and thus, her character is rendered somewhat unrealistic in a story that otherwise strives for a sense of verisimilitude.

“It is always about him.

‘She took my kid.’ His voice ricochets across the room. It bounces on the walls, high-pitched and plaintive.

Once. Just once you took something of his. […]

‘She took my kid.’ The outrage of it. The sheer disbelief.”

Like many serial sexual murderers, Aidan’s worldview has imbued him with the audacity to become enraged whenever his own rights are violated, conveniently ignoring the depths of his remorseless and violent offenses against others. “Rachel” only takes Cecilia with her as a measure of insurance; it is a temporary solution, intended purely to ensure that “Rachel” can get herself to the police station without being harmed. Despite the five years she endured in his control, his repetitive crowing presents such perfect crystallization of Aidan’s callousness and narcissism that it is stunning to “Rachel” to watch him so arrogantly express his sense of being wronged.