The Blue Hour

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.

The plot of the novel is set in motion by Becker’s attempt to arrive at objective truths about whether Vanessa’s sculpture contains a bone, who the bone belongs to, and what Vanessa experienced during her life. However, as events unfold, it becomes increasingly clear that truth and memory are not necessarily reliable or consistent. Facts can be altered based on selective narration, ambiguity, and outright deception. Grace does provide Becker with access and insights into her and Vanessa’s shared history, both by sharing documents and by recounting events that no one else would know about. In the case of Vanessa’s diaries and letters, Becker believes that he has access to unmediated truth about Vanessa’s experiences and state of mind; however, he fails to realize that Grace is carefully portioning and monitoring the documents to control the narrative he receives: “Grace might have given Becker the impression that the papers she’d given him were snatched haphazardly from a pile, but that wasn’t true either” (78). Grace deliberately presents the documents to portray herself in the most favorable light and to ensure that it looks as though she and Vanessa had a close and loving friendship.