The Disassembly of Doreen Durand
Triggers:
child death, vehicular manslaughter, car accidents, suicidal ideation, passive suicide attempt, disassociation, binge eating, metaphorical cannibalism, ritualistic cannibalism, cannibalism, gore, panic attacks, depressive episodes
Quotes
Doreen
“Something was off, and maybe it always had been.” (About Doreen, 8.)
“Not once had either of the women asked e4ach other a personal question.” (9)
“Nothing appeared out of the ordinary except…the porch light itself, which had been twisted upside down.” (15)
“Never had the act of digging oneself into a hole felt more like an act of discovery, excavation not burial.” (16)
Wild because when they open a gravesite for a burial it is called an excavation
“Only joking because saying anything with a degree of sincerity threatened to lead to true existential trauma and lunch was only thirty minutes.” (18)
“Night ended not with a blink but with an unnerving, fading stare. Morning ran forward without mercy.” (26)
“Indeed, there was something wrong with Doreen, in a board, abstract but very real sense.” (32)
“She gathered all her strength - gathered all her mania - and funneled it into the act of monotonous dismissal. No emotion. She inhaled whatever was swirling around her and exhaled indifference. With only her chin, she brushed them off.” (46)
“She was an expert in expunging things from her life.” (62)
This is eventually what she ends up doing for Violet
“Doreen couldn’t snap out of it - she hadn’t been able to snap out of it for a very long time, for not just hours, not just days, but months now, perhaps years.” (69)
“I have a habit of cutting out the parts of myself that don’t serve a purpose, that don’t get me to where I want to be, and maybe I’ve cut off too much.” (76)
“She was an anomaly. A glitch in the system.” (About Doreen, 82).
“When everything finally faded away, she was left with little more than what she started with: two ghosts.” (148)
“She experienced both a sanctimonious high from her uber charity work and a nihilistic curmudgeonly when she did the exact opposite; both feelings battling for dominance, ending most often in a tie, canceling each other out.
It was a currency of emptiness. And the more she used it, the more she began to believe that Violet had had it all wrong.” (232)
“It was as if she had read his mind. Doreen developed a new sort of sensitivity to others. She wasn’t psychic like Violet (though her skepticism of what Violet actually was was still an ever-widening divide), but it was more like she coiled tap into the world of others.” (241)
“Was that every person she encountered inhabited their own individual world, and, if she placed her mind at the right frequency, she could enter inside it.” (241)
“I’m becoming you and I’m realizing that what you are isn’t right. That was Doreen’s lines. She practiced it in her head.” (241 - 242)
“Doreen found herself in the same old position she had been in at Marco’s: working her life away for a morally ambiguous monolith, fantasizing ways to escape and flee.” (243)
Violet
“A pale, key-lime rectangle embossed with a name and an address and a phone number.” (39)
“Despite luxury in abundance there was a simplicity to her.” (About Violet, 65)
“It was as if Violet had an antenna perfectly tuned to the feelings of those around her - or just to Doreen - and was doing exactly what needed to be done.” (72)
Foreshadowing
“Really, my only power is only the ability to see the authentic that resides beyond whatever has been built around it.”
“These sort of memories are so far away, melding together, a barely sortable stream, and the people in them amorphous, interchangeable types. She has lived so many lives. Memories have merged.” (188)
“When she confronts them, she is able to do so in exactly the right way because she sees the perfect, calming words ust waiting to be said, the ones they want to hear her say, the ones at the forefront of their minds, and she grabs them…” (190)
“All this time, the only thing that has differentiated him from the swarm is simply the fact that she had her herself back from truly looking at him.” (About Violet’s deceased husband, 194).
“Violet was becoming more and more silent, aloof, a cipher. Whether she was making any progress in her own wellbeing - in her silent abilities, her psychic powers - it went unnoticed, and Doreen never asked.” (234)
“Both women faded away from each other into their separate corners of the house into the separate silences that they each had sown.” (235)
“She thought it to herself, loud and proud, keeping it front and center in her brain, dangling it in front of Violet, who, mysteriously enough, couldn’t sense anything any more, couldn’t read people,even blatant, obvious things. Something had turned off. She had become almost feeble.” (242)
Officer Solloway
“Officer Solloway who couldn’t stand these kinds of negligent homicides.” (43)
“Why does Whitney Green have two parking spaces? Solloway asked pointing at the bit of folded paperlike a bloodhound… ‘Clerical error I’m sure’ said the manager.” (44 - 45)
“There was something about this hit-and-run that seemed off.” (49)
“They shared a sort of code of silence between them, a disgusting brotherhood where one lifted the rug while the other swept.” (52)
“It was odd, he thought, how even after such a life-altering tragedy, you still had to eventually go home at the end of the day, squeeze your new self into your old home, and smell the same old smells.” (60)
“He should have a reasonable excuse for hounding this periphery witness. He shook off his conscience and plowed through his shame.” (87)
“He saw a woman who had seemingly nup and left without explanation, escaping definition, and leaving chaos in her wake.” (About Doreen, 93).
“Dorren had vanished and the after burn of her image was all he had left, an invisible bird flapping around his head.” (153)
“The witness disappears, but the mystery of the accident is solved without her. Justice is served…There’s closure. But the witness is still gone.” (154)
“He was sweet, he was attractive, and he was not much else. There was nothing in him that would hook her too strongly.” (159)
“Solloway would’ve smiled if he wasn’t so unreachable.” (218)
Reading Notes:
Doreen is pretty morose, sad, and depressed
Lacking close personal bonds with others
Unmoored from her daily surrounding
Environment a reflection of the inner emotional realm
Self destructive and in denial about it
Author IS self aware of current young adults unhealthy relationships with the workplace
“A speeding car appears and flies through them.” (Collett, 21)
Set up like a horror shot in the framing
Feels more visceral, gruesome but not graphic, gets more graphic further down the page
Author is quite fond of analogies and similes
POV alternates between Doreen and Office Solloway
A whole paragraph about mental illness and self perception
There existed a temptation to call for help. It had been there for awhile and this was what Doreen saw it as - a temptation… She shunned it as if there were some kind of value to be gleaned from suffering, like a club card that could be stamped enough time and free ice cream would appear. She ignored thinking about this any further because if she did, she would have realized that everything she was doing - sleeping all day, living alone in darkness, throwing away all her possessions - was in fact the purest, most alarming call for help and she was screaming it out into darkness.
And something out there was responding. (Collett, 42 - 43)
Parking space clerical error Doreen is either:
Not on the lease
A figment of the imagination
Forgotten
Officer Solloway’s two ideas about being a cop are complete opposites
Vigilantism, violence with no oversight
Rules and regulation, follower to his core
Not very effective, can only work when these views align
Doreen MAJORLY lacks distress tolerance skills
Violet Cascade
A mysterious woman
Classic minimalist, wears nude, elegant
Not a showy wealth but put together in the way that only the wealthy can be
Violet’s driving style and her car appearance match her previous descriptions
Violet is GOOD at driving
Writing style is ephemeral
Violet is charming and commands people around her
She is evasive in answering any questions about her background
Recap, page 79:
Doreen has thrown away all of her belongings
Racked up debt by spending credit on fancy dinners delivered to her home
Didn’t report the accident that she saw happen right out of her window
Refused to answer the door to talk with the police
Violet has a calm elegant exterior but under that there’s something else?
Is she ominous, predatory, prophetic?
There was something about her that Doreen could sense, a kind of insecurity or instability, a need to project perfection in order to protect something innermost, inconceivable. (Collett, 81)
Doreen spent several THOUSANDS in using the delivery apps
Doreen described by different characters as a mistake
Glitch in the system, anomaly, clinical error
Officer Soloway does use bodily force on civilians
Doreen has basically no attachments and people quickly move on from her
What is, “the disassembly of Doreen Durand”?
Doreen is a construct/figment, this is why she doesn’t get attached and fades quickly. Explains why people only note her when in direct view or thinking of her. She’s like a mirage.
Doreen’s “disassembly” is the reader watching her actively and passively tearing down everything in her life piece by piece. The “disassembly” of Doreen Durance is how her self-destruction is pulling her and her life apart.
Doreen and the bird
Both making nests in places they don’t belong
Doreen at Mario’s in Portland where she works
The living room nest
Literally the cover image
Bird is constantly living unnoticed unless in sight BUT people notice the habitat
General notes continued
Officer Solloway lost his work wife several years ago and it still has him fucked up
She left for another job
The absolute devastation is desertion (Collett, 91)
Officer Palmer is two misconduct and human rights violations
Palmer and Solloway’s relationship is built on: mistrust, sarcasm, laziness, either hatred or devotion to authority depending on what suits them best
Officer Solloway HATES women
Doreen has realized that she is depressed (Collett, 98)
Who/what does Violet do?
Museums, galleries, universities, shopping malls, wineries, pharmaceutical plants, historical palaces in Europe and Asia, oil refineries
An activist, movie producer, lobbyist, saleswoman, banket, heiress, lawmaker, free agent
Violet doesn’t eat on page
Doreen is having flashback of the accident that she witnessed
The older son (Leo, age 7) had been prank calling Doreen’s cell
Doreen attempts to return home and Violet posits that either:
1) Violet was the SUV drive
2) Violet is a detective
3) Violet just felt Doreen’s distress
5/17/2023, Start page 126
Violet basically says this is Doreen’s last change to stay with her or go back to Portland
Doreen steals Violet’s bag because her phone is in there and heads to the airport to fly back to Portland
There’s some sort of flag on her ID when she tries to use it at the airport
She bolts from the airport, is fired from Mario’s by phone, then breaks down in the Waffle House parking lot
With no money she orders all the food possible and if that doesn’t kill her she’ll die in the parking lot
“She wrapped an arm around Doreen and whisked her away into the silent cascade.” (Collett, 141)
Part Two
Solloway and Palmer are not really effective cops
A more senior pair checks the traffic camera footage near the apartment and finds the culprit
Doreen doesn’t know they’ve found the answer to the mystery
The driver is completely in denial about the accident and processing that they killed the two boys
Took about a week to find the culprit and close the case
Solloway keeps Doreen’s case open MONTHS after Molly is arrested for the car accident
Sidenote: the police chapters allow for different more seamless transitions in the chronology of the work
Solloway DOES keep Doreen’s items front he dumpster is his apartment
Jesus, he’s stalking her apartment
When Doreen’s apartment is rotated by management the glass lamp with the bird falls and the bird is really injured
“It struggled to get back up, fluttering but broken now.” (Collett, 152)
Solloway wants to forget the bird like he wants to forget Doreen
Commentary that renters should buy without acknowledging the financial realities of why they can’t
Solloway has a parasocial relationship with Doreen
Gets worse after moving into her old apartment
“He was leaving a deranged voicemail, or, more accurately, he was talking to no one, flitting back and forth between formalities and vibrant, emotional pinning. He sounded rawer than she had ever heard him before, more emotional.” (Collett, 158)
5/24/2023, Chapter 17, Rome, Page 163
Being in Rome is much different and Doreen is coming back to herself
Everything is smooth because VIolet’s wealth makes the trip so
Doreen has finally become more of the self she knew she had always been: practical, assured, sarcastic, and dry, but earnest and teachable. A wreck of a person was finally coming back to herself. (Collett, 164)
As Doreen stabilizes, Violet becomes frantic, anxious?
Is Violet a person who needs to be fixing/actively assisting the people around her or else she’ll be forced to reflect on herself?
Violet thinks Doreen didn’t react because she was in shock
Doreen thinks it was seeing the accident that revealed to herself what her breakdown and downward spiral had become
Violet meets people after they go through intense moments but it’s hard to be useful after the first encounter with them
Violet is adjusting her perspective
It’s a slow process, a degree at a time
Violet has a strong intuitive sense that calls to good fortune or disaster
This pinged her to Doreen from Atlanta
Violet confides in Doreen and Doreen feels a link of sisterhood that connects them
Doreen LIED and doesn’t believe Violet about her powers because she’s afraid of what that future could entail
Doreen is against fracking but the author doesn’t mention any reason why
If it becomes a plot point it shouldn’t rely on reader knowledge of the topic
Violet:
has had these abilities since she was a baby
has a distant relationships with her parents
She feels like there is both more and less people in the world after they die
She’s had three husbands who all died from old age
Is she marrying them old, lying, or supernatural?
She marries a man whose mind she couldn’t read at first
They are married for 60 years and he hates her in the end
Violet has lived for CENTURIES
She limits her external stimuli to keep her powers in check
Is a billionaire
Violet moves away from personal relationships and makes webs that she uses to relate to the world
“This was about the exchanging of money and nothing else, like senselessness, like the circulation of blood, and as she rejected them, their advances transformed.” (Collett, 201)
Using business not as about moral stances but as a way of chipping at other’s internal selves until concede
Theory: Doreen and Violet are separate people; Violet’s powers are going to Doreen and Violet can die now. Violet is NOT a person, but rather, an amalgam of all the people, lives, and memories this ability has passed to.
Doreen is being, “disassembled” and formed into the newest iteration of Violet Cascade.
TLDR; Violet’s psychic calibration is so off because of the Doreen zoom; she’s having problems getting back to her baseline.
Lagos, 208
It’s been a year since the accidents
Solloway remains dating someone (Cara) AND he still has his fixation towards Doreen
5/31/2023, Start page 212
Occasional POV from Officer Soloway’s girlfriend
“They both knew it had been time, they had run each other’s causes, Waiting any longer would cause a blowout. Lagos was going to be a blowout, she thought. But a good story.” (Collett, 213)
Solloway still wants to take Doreen in but it’s unclear for what since the hit and run culprit was already caught
Cara offers emotional intimacy to sate her curiosity by offering to help Solloway find what he’s looking for
He refuses the offer
At the beach Cara schedules the break up for evening but Solloway breaks it off during the days and leaves her on the beach
Doreen is basically working for Violet and having meetings getting her out of deals she doesn’t want to be involved with
She’s in charge of downsizing Violet’s billions of assets
Doreen has essentially endless money and is using it to try to find out what her morals are
Opposite financial situation of what she started at
Violet is becoming more distant, or at least, not any closer to Doreen even as Doreen grows into a fixed role in Violet’s life
Violet’s earlier statement that it’s hard to maintain a connection after the initial contact is fulfilling itself
Doreen’s life is put together but she is hurtling towards another breakdown
Doreen is gaining an amount of psychic ability similar to Violet’s
If everyone’s internal world is a frequency she can tune into it like a radio
Violet’s abilities are getting weaker as Doreen’s is getting stronger
Violet says that she’s retained the ability but when she goes to use it it’s like hitting a brick wall
The relationship between the two of them is ABSOLUTELY souring
The statue that Violet purchased is a visual metaphor for Doreen and Violet
“She looked like a woman pulling herself into two people, or one women, folding herself into something less.” (Collett, 247)
Closing of all of Violet’s accounts mirrors the close on life
Violet and Doreen talk and Violet comments that it’s finally over
The next morning when Doreen wakes up she has enhanced senses
Violets disappears during the night without a trace
Violet is outside framed by the void in the statue
There’s a chase scene and when touched Violets starts breaking apart
Falls to the ground and breaks apart until it’s like the pebbles below them on the ground
As Violet breaks apart she eats a hard boiled egg amount of flesh before it’s gone
Solloway finds Doreen and chases her, he follows her to a cliff, climbs it and falls off the cliff face
He doesn’t die on impact and Doreen calls the local police and coast guard for him
Diamond Lake
Book switched to second person
You shudder as you suddenly realize just how much of a role you didn’t play in the final narrative, how irrelevant you were in the end to these people. You’ve been scrubbed away from this thing that has become the centerpiece of your own life. (Collett, 275)
Fixing the snare points of life just moves them further down the line
Plot summary:
Doreen works for a company she has zero interest in and she has the vague idea that she wants to do a job that helps people
Her roommate suddenly moves out and it leave Doreen untethered with no real friend or family to lean on
She recedes completely, stops going to work, and racks up thousands in credit charges for food delivered to her house
She makes a depression nest in the middle of her living room
One day at home she sees two boys killed in a hit and run outside her window
Her shock causes her to immediately freeze and she’s unable to call the police
The guilt eats her alive and she spirals even further
The police (Officer Solloway) are incredibly suspicious AND she’s the only witness to the crime
Doreen gathers all her belonging and throws them all away
Officer Solloway goes and collects all the items and detritus
Doreen meets Violet Cascade a woman the picture of refinement and after hesitation takes her offer to be whisked away while she gets her fitting in life and recovers from witnessing the car accident
The book splits into an A and B part. One plot will follow Doreen and Violet, the other will follow Office Solloway and his further interest that devolves into an obsession with Doreen.
Officer Solloway will end up having no importance on the overall plot so I will ignore it for summary purposes
The reason that Violet was drawn to Doreen is that she has a supernatural sense for great luck or disaster
Violet has lived many lives and her power is acting up
She’s becoming disconnected to the world around her
Violet starts passing her business over to Doreen to do as she pleases
Violet becomes increasingly disconnected from the world as Doreen seems to be inheriting her abilities
One day Violet just runs out and turn to dust in front of Doreen
Doreen eats her literally? Symbolically?
Doreen leaves herself, her identity behind, and takes on the mantle of Violet Cascade
Post reading general thoughts:
Transition to being supernatural is around 180/320 pages
Book can be raw as hell, or, lines that hit but aren’t followed through with
Book quote is “the disembodying effect of surviving trauma and living under capitalism”
The book says very little about capitalism
Doreen has vague ideas about company morals but she doesn’t really state her position other than general offhand comments said to Violet
Regardless of her feelings she has no problems using the millions at her disposal that she got from working under Violet,
You need to have a theme or central focus
The book is juggling the following:
Doreen’s mental breakdown
Mystery surrounding Violet
Violet’s downfall
Office Solloway’s obsession with Doreen
Investigation of the hit and run
Officer Solloway’s failed relationships
Part 1 and part 2 are basically different book
Part 1 is about mental illness, trauma, and the police investigation
Part 2 is supernatural and the Solloway conclusion
The book DOES NOT discuss the impact of trauma
When Doreen set up to see recovery it goes to the supernatural elements AND she becomes rich removing the stakes that were set up in Part 1.
The setup in Part 1 makes the conflict between mental health and daily living then layers on trauma from seeing a major accident and the financial pressures Doreen’s spending causes. Focus is placed on how she is/must maintain the facade of normal functioning. Those stakes are lost when she becomes a financial elite outside of the restraints placed by needing to operate as an employee in the corporate workplace setting.
What was the point of Officer Solloway AFTER the hit and run was solved?
An amount of time is spent on his relationship with Cara and his obsession but it has no payoff
A plot point needs to have SOME payoff for the time invested in it. Otherwise that space is better used developing and strengthening other plot points.
Solloway’s Part 2 could’ve been used to smooth the transition from Doreen’s breakdown to her about face recovery.
Reviews state that it’s her life AFTER a breakdown caused by a traumatic incident. Make no mistake she was well into the breakdown BEFORE the accident. She only saw the accident because she’d cloistered herself at home.
Book is a good read but there’s way more depth in the first part before the supernatural elements take hold.
I did enjoy the writing style but, in the end, I’ve no idea what the book was trying to say
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