Greenwich Park

Content Warning: The source text depicts domestic violence, pregnancy loss, rape, and death by suicide, which this section of the guide discusses.

Helen is the novel’s protagonist and one of the first-person narrators. She’s an upper-class, conventional, morally inclined person with strict beliefs about what makes a good parent and a good life for a child. As a pregnant woman who’s previously had four miscarriages, Helen’s ideas about motherhood and childrearing are central to the novel. Her ideas also evolve throughout the text, elaborating on The Meaning of Parenthood. At first, Helen doesn’t believe that her younger brother, Charlie, who had a child by accident and is a DJ, deserves to be a parent. Likewise, she has doubts about Rachel’s ability to parent, because of her drinking, smoking, single-parent status, and unconventional personality. By the end of the novel, Helen learns that good parenthood is more complex than she thought and cannot be measured in terms of money, career choices, relationship status, place of residence, adherence to conventional rules, or other simplistic factors. In reality, many of the people who Helen originally thought would be suitable parents turn out to be some of the most dangerous people imaginable.

Helen’s character arc also complicates The Illusion of Safety. Firstly, Helen believes that adherence to pregnancy rules will keep her unborn child safe. The reality is that adhering to these rules does not guarantee the safety of a fetus and does not negate the possibility of a miscarriage or stillbirth. By following the rules, Helen may be able to keep Leo safer, but this safety is not absolute. If Helen had drunk alcohol or soaked in a jacuzzi like Serena does while pregnant, this would have been far less dangerous than exposing herself and her unborn child to Daniel and Serena, both of whom she trusts completely, and neither of whom are inhibited by her careful adherence to pregnancy rules. Daniel’s assault harms both Helen and Leo, who is born via emergency c-section, and Serena drugs Helen extensively against her knowledge, to the point that it affects Leo’s growth in utero. Furthermore, Daniel and Serena threaten the stability and security Helen takes for granted through their decades-long affair and plans to steal from Helen. All of this is potentially much more harmful to Leo than Jacuzzis or alcohol would be. Contrary to Helen’s original ideas, she provides the safest, happiest life for Leo by separating from Daniel and moving out of their fancy house. Greenwich Park will not keep Leo safe, but Helen can once she removes him from the dangerous people who previously appeared to be “normal,” responsible, and upstanding citizens.

Daniel is Helen’s husband and business partner to Rory. Daniel is an architect and appears to be intelligent, responsible, and upstanding. Helen believes that Daniel is a “loving husband” and that he’ll be a good father to their son once he’s born. She’s also impressed that Daniel has stayed with her throughout the years, despite the four miscarriages they’ve experienced. She considers herself lucky to have Daniel and pities people like Rachel who face single parenthood. However, Daniel is lying to Helen (and most others) about his personality, intentions, and actions, and ultimately, he’s one of the novel’s main antagonists. His character arc develops The Complexity of Identity because he is in no way who he seems to be. He also develops the illusion of safety because Helen feels safe with him, but in reality, he poses a greater danger to her than almost anyone else.

Daniel is a manifestation of a common trope in domestic thriller novels—he illustrates how the greatest dangers can lurk in the least-expected places, namely the home. Daniel masquerades as a model citizen, but really, he’s a liar, cheater, thief, and co-conspirator in murder. Helen has no idea about any of this until it’s almost too late, which amplifies the novel’s terror. Most people understand that evil exists, but they usually don’t expect their spouses to be evil. The discovery of an evil spouse is terrifying because it’s a particularly intimate violation of safety, but also because it calls into question the protagonist’s judgment and ability to detect danger. Moving forward, trust will presumably be difficult because the person who Helen trusted most of all turns out to be wholly untrustworthy. Even at the end of the novel, after Daniel is imprisoned for murder, his letter to Helen is full of lies. He admits to some of the worst parts of his past, but not to everything, illustrating that he’s still not who he pretends to be despite having lost his main reasons for lying in the first place.

Rory is Helen’s older brother, who lives nearby and with whom she spends a lot of time. Rory is an architect and Daniel’s business partner. His wife, Serena, is pregnant and due around the same time as Helen. Rory is upper-class and shares Helen’s interests. He is depicted as smart, responsible, and moral, although the true nature of his identity is called into question earlier in the novel than Daniel’s or Serena’s is. Although Helen knows that Rory uses drugs and is likely having an affair, she still thinks he’s superior to her younger brother, Charlie, whom she views as “hopeless.” For much of the novel, the reader is led to believe that Rory may be the novel’s antagonist and Rachel’s murderer. Rory develops the complexity of identity because, although he’s not the main villain, he’s also not the moral figure Helen assumes he is. In short, Rory is even more morally complex than most of the other characters. Rory wasn’t having an affair with Rachel, but he was having an affair with Lisa. He also didn’t kill Rachel, but he did help cover up her murder and hide her body because he believed that Rachel was extorting him and that the police would suspect him of killing her. Helen’s initial idea that Rory is better than Charlie is ironic, because Rory’s flaws and crimes far outweigh Charlie’s. Helen’s presumptions about Rory’s character are based primarily on his appearance of being upstanding due to his job and home, which she views as more respectable than Charlie’s.

Rory also develops The Meaning of Parenthood. For most of the text, Rory is depicted as an expectant father because his wife, Serena, is pregnant. For a while, it seems like he might actually be expecting two babies—Serena’s and Rachel’s. In reality, Rory is not an expectant father at all, because Rachel’s pregnancy was faked (and she was never with Rory), and Serena’s baby is actually Daniel’s. Even Rory thinks that Serena’s baby is his until, presumably, the very end of the novel, when he finds out that Serena and Daniel have been having a decade-long affair. This illustrates how the meaning of parenthood is not even always rooted in reality. It’s possible to be wrong about one’s own identity as a parent. This amplifies the novel’s terror, illustrating how even the most intimate, personal aspects of life and one’s identity can be affected by lies. Of course, some people can be parents even if they’re not biologically related to a child, as can be the case with stepparents or adoptive parents. However, in Rory’s case, he does not stay with Serena and does not seem to have any involvement in the baby’s life once he finds out she’s not biologically his.

Serena is Rory’s wife and Helen’s sister-in-law and one of the novel’s first-person narrators and antagonists. Serena is a photographer with an aesthetic sensibility and expensive taste. She has a lot of friends and is an upper-class socialite. When Serena started dating Rory, Helen took an early liking to her, and in the present, she idealizes Serena and strives to be like her. For example, whenever Serena gets something new, Helen buys the same item. Despite Helen’s obsession with Serena, Serena reveals in the sections she narrates that she finds Helen annoying. From the beginning, the reader is clued into the fact that Serena is cold and capable of cruelty. She’s also smart, deceitful, and careful. These qualities allow Serena to evade detection as a murderer until the last page of the novel.

Serena develops the complexity of identity because she manages to fool almost everyone else in the book. She seems like an upstanding citizen who may be somewhat cruel, but nothing suggests she is a murderer. She even seems like a “victim” of Rory’s infidelity, when in reality, she’s having an affair too. Despite having a lot of friends, she’s not really a “friend” to women because she witnesses Rachel being raped, does nothing to interfere, and refused to come forward as a witness, prioritizing her own reputation and self-preservation. Even when Daniel wants to come forward, she convinces him not to, demonstrating her self-focused nature. For a long time, she’s honest only with Daniel. At the end, she betrays Daniel as well, allowing him to believe that they’ll be together again once he gets out of prison, when in reality she’s already searching for a new rich man. After her and Daniel’s attempt to pin Rachel’s murder on Rory fails, Serena pins it on Daniel so that she can walk free, depicting her capabilities to be cruel, selfish, and greedy to a degree that transcends all other aspects of her life, even the love that she allegedly felt for Daniel.

Rachel is a new friend whom Helen meets at a prenatal class in Greenwich Park. Like other characters, Rachel develops the complexity of identity because she is not who she seems to be. Rachel appears to be pregnant and allows Helen to believe that she lives in Greenwich Park; to Helen’s knowledge, Rachel is not connected to anyone else she knows. In reality, Rachel fakes her pregnancy and seeks a friendship with Helen to access Daniel and Serena, who witnessed her rape a decade prior and refused to come forward as witnesses, resulting in a “not guilty” verdict for Rachel’s rapists. Rachel also knows Charlie because they used to work together and were briefly romantically involved. At first, Rachel seems impulsive, unconventional, and somewhat irresponsible. Helen even feels unsafe around Rachel, although she eventually warms up to her because of her kindness and companionship. Ironically, Rachel is probably one of the best friends Helen has, but Helen rejects her when she finds out Rachel has been lying. Helen rejects Rachel before she can learn why she was lying, leaving both herself and Rachel in danger at the hands of Daniel and Serena.

Rachel complicates the illusion of safety by illustrating that danger, like safety, can be an illusion. Helen feels like Rachel is dangerous, especially after she discovers Daniel’s laptop and other objects in Rachel’s room. In reality, Rachel is in danger, ultimately murdered by Daniel and Serena shortly after Helen rejects her. Even when Rachel breaks pregnancy rules—such as drinking and smoking—the danger is mostly an illusion because Rachel is never pregnant. Rachel’s presence in Helen’s house is in fact dangerous, but this is because Daniel is liable to kill her. Rachel threatens to “ruin” Helen and Daniel’s marriage by exposing the truth, but this would actually be doing Helen a favor by exposing her husband’s true character. Notably, unlike the other women in the novel, Rachel’s interiority is not explored through narration. While her motive for entering Helen’s life becomes clear, her true feelings about Helen—and intent in suggesting that Helen drink alcohol and coffee or otherwise risk her baby’s health—are not revealed.

Katie is a friend of Helen’s whom she’s known since childhood, as well as Helen’s younger brother Charlie’s on-and-off girlfriend. Katie is a journalist and one of the novel’s first-person narrators. She’s less wealthy than Serena, Rory, Helen, and Daniel, and she’s not interested in cultivating the sort of life that Helen (initially) seems to want. Katie is smart, determined, and genuinely interested in doing the right thing. As a journalist, she has investigative skills and plays an active role in unfurling the novel’s mysteries alongside the reader. Katie represents another hallmark of thriller novels: Where the police fail to solve mysteries, especially murder investigations, other characters step in to fill in the gaps. Katie works to solve the crime with DCI Mark Carter, who is technically a member of law enforcement, but not one assigned to Rachel’s murder case. Katie and Carter are only able to solve the mystery when they break the rules. Confidentiality prohibits Carter from disclosing details of past cases to Katie, but it’s only by learning these details that Katie is able to find out who killed Rachel and why. Moreover, this information helps Katie discern that Helen is also in danger, allowing her to save Helen’s and Leo’s lives. If Katie and Carter had played by the rules and left the case to the designated homicide detectives, Helen and Leo would likely have died, plus nobody would have discovered who killed Rachel, at least not in a timely manner.

Katie also complicates the novel’s concepts of both safety and family. In the beginning of the text, Helen trusts Daniel, Rory, and Serena above everyone else, but later, when she’s nearing childbirth, Helen’s intuition tells her to trust Katie with the keys to her house in case anything happens. This is an uncharacteristic choice for Helen because Katie lives further away and is not a biological family member, but the decision saves Helen’s and Leo’s lives. After Leo’s birth, Helen moves in with Katie, another uncharacteristic choice that keeps her and Leo safe. After her experiences with Daniel, Helen revises her definition of “safety” and “security.” Keeping Leo safe and secure is no longer about living in an upscale house and neighborhood, but rather, about keeping him around people who are honest and good, such as Katie and Charlie. Previously, Helen had claimed that the only “family” she had left were Rory and Charlie, and she was hesitant to “count” Charlie as family because he was “hopeless.” At the end, Helen views both Charlie and Katie as family. It doesn’t even matter if Charlie and Katie are together romantically because family is not contingent upon blood, marriage, or even romance. Instead, Katie is family because she shares her home with Helen, saves her and Leo’s lives, and has their best interests in mind. This is more than Helen could say about Daniel, Serena, or even Rory, all of whom were previously considered Helen’s family based on basic kinship rules revolving around blood and marriage.