The Quiet Tenant

As a serial sexual predator and murderer, Aidan Thomas is the antagonist of The Quiet Tenant. Described by the unsuspecting women around him as ruggedly handsome, clean-cut, and politely reserved, Aidan has managed to conceal his homicidal activities from everyone in his life, including his wife, daughter, and the other members of their small town in upstate New York, for everyone perceives him to be an upstanding, helpful, devoted family man and valuable member of their community. This dynamic shows Aidan’s uncanny ability to succeed at Hiding Key Personality Traits that, if they become known, would cause his closest family members to recoil in utter horror. Ultimately, Aidan’s family is his camouflage, and thus the recent death of his wife to cancer causes a crucial imbalance in Aidan’s delicate disguise, for he loses access to his house and must move both his daughter and his hidden captive to a new location in order to continue his depraved activities. The stressors associated with this transition result in a gradual unraveling of his ability to maintain the compartmentalization that has allowed him to murder nearly 10 women since his first murder in college. He also displays the classic serial killer’s penchant for collecting trophies of each murder and therefore maintains the evidence of his crimes in organized boxes.

All the information about Aidan that Clémence Michallon provides comes from the observations and perceptions of the women around him; he is never permitted to narrate events himself. Aidan’s daughter, Cecilia, knows that her father once hoped to attend medical school but instead became a hospital corpsman in the Marine Corps. His parents are deceased, and his daughter has the impression that his childhood was unhappy and most likely abusive. Underneath his pleasant veneer, Aidan is highly organized, methodical, calculating, vindictive, callous, and brooding. Though he is generally in command of his behaviors, he sometimes manifests moments of rage and impulsivity, and these crucial slips increase in frequency as the novel progresses. It is also important to note that “Rachel’s” captivity represents a critical aberration from Aidan’s usual routine of stalking and murdering women outright; as it happens, it is a comment she makes about the term for a group of crows that causes him to spontaneously “keep” her rather than kill her like all the others. In a further departure from his usual routine, Aidan also becomes sexually involved with a local resident, Emily, thus blurring the strict separation that he once kept between his targets and his acquaintances. He also begins to struggle with Cecilia’s growing independence and rebelliousness, which threaten to compromise his secrecy. Likewise, his ultimate downfall occurs because of his inability to appreciate and anticipate the tenacity and ingenuity of the women around him.

Cecilia Tomas is Aidan’s 13-year-old daughter and the secondary protagonist of The Quiet Tenant. At the opening of the novel, she is reeling from the loss of her mother, Caroline, and the upheaval of moving from her childhood home. She is consumed by loneliness, irritated by the exaggerated gentleness with which the community treats her, and resentful of her father’s apparent inability to demonstrate any hint of the grief that she herself feels for Caroline’s death. Cecilia loves her father and fully believes that he loves her in return, but she begins to rebel against the regimented style that he implements in dictating and enforcing the rules of their home. Her most serious transgression is her decision to skip school and take a train ride to a local town, but she also finds other ways to defy him, including keeping secrets with their new “tenant.” Cecilia is initially angry to learn that a woman is joining their household, for she temporarily assumes that “Rachel” is her father’s girlfriend. She is happy to learn that this is not the case and is drawn to their strange boarder, but she becomes newly infuriated when her father begins courting Emily; Cecilia thinks it inappropriate that he would become involved with someone so quickly after the death of his wife of 15 years. Cecilia is terrified when “Rachel” first tries to drag her out of the house, but over time, they rekindle their friendliness.

Cecilia sees her father as a mystery; she tries to interpret his behavior without having the necessary background knowledge to understand his true nature, and thus, her ignorance of his activities emphasizes The Omnipresent Threat of Danger, which can often reside very close to home, even in settings and relationships that would normally be considered safe. Cecilia knows that her mother was very much in love with Aidan, for Caroline readily and flippantly dismissed her parents’ palpable dislike of their son-in-law. Now, Cecilia is curious about the origins of their negative feelings toward him, and she is also hurt that her grandparents would so readily sell the home their granddaughter lived in, regardless of how they felt about her father. Cecilia’s reaction to the revelation that her father is a serial killer is not depicted by Michallon at all; however, “Rachel” eventually learns that Cecilia and the dog she rescued are sent to live with Caroline’s parents following Aidan’s arrest.