Kit McDeere is having a rough year in 1983. An in-home caregiver, she’s been accused of killing a patient. Her small town suspects that she either intentionally left out the fentanyl that a patient used to overdose, or that she was there that night and actually gave the medication to the patient. She insists that she simply made a mistake in leaving the bottle out. After a police investigation and six months of suspension from her job, her boss reluctantly gives her a new assignment—she’s to care for the infamous Lenora Hope. The story goes that in 1929, Lenora murdered her entire family. There’s even a rhyme about the murders that kids still sing in town. But as soon as Kit arrives at Hope’s End, a crumbling mansion on the very edge of a cliff, she suspects there’s more to the story. The catch is that Lenora seems unable to communicate anything, because she’s unable to speak and capable of moving only her left hand. Much to Kit’s surprise, Lenora begins to use her good hand and a typewriter to ever so slowly reveal her side of the story. A thrilling gothic novel, The Only One Left is about the discovery of what really happened on that fateful night long ago.
I could not be happier at the resurgence of the gothic genre. I love that there are so many takes on a formula laid out centuries ago—an innocent arrives at a huge house with a dark past. She (it’s almost always a woman) is trapped there for one reason or another. In this case, Kit feels she can’t quit in part because it would mean losing her job with the caregiving agency. Often, part of the formula is a loyal but odd household staff who are always in the house and have been there forever. Hope’s End employs two servants who have been working there since before 1929, as well as a seemingly innocent maid and groundskeeper, young new additions. The older staff always knows more than they let on, although here, they claim to have been absent the night of the murders. There’s almost always a hint of the supernatural in a gothic novel, typically explained away, but sometimes real. Kit hears mysterious noises, and she’s told that this is the ghost of the sister who died in 1929. Finally, the house must be destroyed at the end of the story. This is not a spoiler, as it’s clear from the beginning that Hope’s End is about to fall off the nearby cliff. In other words, there are tropes in gothic novels, and they are fun when they’re written this well.
Setting this novel in 1983 is brilliant not only because it places the murders in a faraway time, but also because, without cell phones or computers, the characters are more isolated. Isolation is key in the gothic tradition. It has to be hard to call for help. It’s also key that the protagonist is isolated from the other residents, especially the original staff. Archie, the cook, is friendly enough, but tight-lipped. Mrs. Baker, the housekeeper, is strict and unkind. The maid, Jessie, is younger than Kit and misses the previous caregiver; she doesn’t seem interested in making friends. Carter, the groundskeeper, lives in a cottage separate from the house. As things get increasingly strange, Kit begins to suspect that everyone around her is hiding something, isolating her even further. Worse, she can’t go for help because the local police detective has accused her of murder and consistently refuses to listen to her.
A gothic heroine always discovers something suspicious right away, and The Only One Left has a sense of danger from the moment Kit is assigned to work at Hope’s End. How dangerous is Lenora Hope? Can she still inflict harm? Is she really as helpless as she seems? Kit’s predecessor, Mary, disappeared without a trace one night, but no one seems interested in investigating what happened to her. Kit grows suspicious when she discovers that her room is still filled with Mary’s things, from clothes in the closet to a bookshelf filled with books Mary obviously loved. What could be going on here, and why is no one else concerned?
The house itself is a time capsule, stuck in that tragic year. This is also typically gothic. Lenora’s room looks exactly as it did when her portrait was painted in 1929, a portrait that hangs with three others. But it’s the only one visible, as black cloth has been nailed over the others, covering the dead family members. There are traces of blood stains in the carpet on the stairs. There’s an empty space in the billiard room where the bloodied pool table once stood. It can’t last forever, though, as the house is tilting towards the cliff. The pitch on the upper floors makes it so hard to walk that the housekeeper compares it to “getting your sea legs.” Kit wakes up each morning to find that her mattress has slid down her bed. It’s all falling apart, with literal cracks appearing daily, and she arrives just in time to see it crumble. As the house crumbles, so do the narratives around the deaths that haunt both Kit and Lenora. Should she leave her charge alone in a dangerous house to save herself, or try to get Lenora out of there? Does Lenora deserve to escape? Why is everyone so intent on staying?
A major theme in The Only One Left is, of course, innocence versus guilt. Both Kit and Lenora have avoided a murder conviction because there has never been enough evidence to go to trial, not because they were proven innocent. Their reputations are forever tainted by the accusations of murder, however unfounded. When Lenora is actually eager to tell Kit about that night, word by painstaking word, this raises a crucial question for her—does Lenora trust her because she believes they are both innocent, or does she think they’re both guilty? This question is partly what drives Kit to investigate the murders. It’s not just curiosity. She wants to believe that Lenora is innocent because she needs to believe in her own innocence; she did, in fact, leave the bottle out, something she had never done before. Did some part of her know that this would result in the death of her patient? Is Kit innocent because she did not mean for her patient to die, or does her negligence make her somewhat guilty? In other words, is there some gray area between guilt and innocence? The question is whether she can learn to live within that gray area.
This novel impressed me by relying on a genre known for its highly formulaic structure while still keeping me guessing and building suspense. We are allowed to parse smaller clues and reveals, but this only serves to highlight just how much we don’t know. Nothing seemed like a convenient plot device. Sager populates the novel with a cast of well-developed characters who have rich inner lives. When each one finally explains the past, you will be on the edge of your seat.