“The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo” (post 4) by Taylor Jenkins Reid: Why do both main characters have split identities?

Evelyn Hugo says, “I’m bisexual. Don’t ignore half of me so you can fit me into a box, Monique. Don’t do that" (1, p. 123).

“This stings. Hard. [Monique, as narrator, responds] I know how it feels for people to assume things about you, to prescribe a label for you based on how you appear to them. I have spent my life trying to explain to people that while I look Black, I am biracial…And here I’ve gone and done to Evelyn what so many people have done to me. Her love affair with a woman signaled to me that she was gay, and I did not wait for her to tell me she was bisexual” (1, p. 123).

Comment: As far as I know, the author was not intentionally implying that both of her two main characters had split personalities in the sense of multiple personality (a.k.a. “dissociative identity disorder”). As far as I know, the author had not been thinking in terms of multiple personality, per se.

The splits in both main characters may be one more example of what I have called “gratuitous multiple personality,” which is when a novel has symptoms, suggestions, or metaphors of multiple personality, but it is not an intentional part of plot or character development, and probably reflects an aspect of the author’s own psychology, multiple personality trait.

I will see if the rest of this novel supports that tentative interpretation.

1. Taylor Jenkins Reid. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. New York, Washington Square/Atria, 2017/2018.