So relationships can be horrifying, right?
Entering into a new relationship with someone requires a huge leap of faith and show of trust, two things that many of us find it difficult to do. That’s why we have commitment issues. The further into the relationship you get, the more trust you give the person, and the scarier it gets. Every time you start dating someone, you’re either going to break up or get married.
It’s no wonder that relationships make such great backdrops for the darker parts of human nature.
Here are 7 literary couples whose relationships are deeply disturbing in the most fascinating ways possible.
April and Frank, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
Never has a good suburban family gone awry faster than April and Frank’s. Here’s a story about two profoundly unhappy people in a devastatingly bad relationship. April is passionate and filled with potential, but trying to please her husband also changes her in a way that is absolutely heart-wrenching. Frank is oblivious to his own failings and the damage he does to himself and his wife; this tension keeps pushing this story along to its tragic ending.
You’ll never look at neat suburban houses in the same way again—you’ll always wonder what’s going on inside of them!
Millicent and her husband, My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing
Murder isn’t my idea of a perfect date night, but it is for Millicent and her husband. That by itself is creepy, but Samantha Downing draws us even deeper into this mess of a relationship.
We only get one side of this story, because Millicent’s husband is narrating, and the tension from that unreliable narrator makes an uncomfortable situation even creepier. Listening to his justifications about what he and Millicent do in a casual, relaxed tone sends shivers down your spine, and the mystery surrounding Millicent makes everything more unsettling. This story also has a reveal so shocking that it will make you put the book down just to try to process it!
Heathcliff and Catherine, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Mutual obsession? Check.
Catastrophic communication failure? Check. Enacting your vengeance by abusing, mistreating and occasionally kidnapping children? Check. The ghost of your not-lover haunting you from beyond the grave and driving you to your death? Check.
Truly, a classic romance.
Heathcliff and Catherine ruin their lives and the lives of nearly everyone around them with the force of their vast, deeply destructive relationship. This story proves that passionate love, unchecked by logic and isolated by the moors, can be just as destructive as violent hate.
Anderson Lake and Emiko, The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Paolo Bacigalupi’s biopunk epic has a truly messed-up relationship at its center. The power dynamic in this one is not great from the get-go. Anderson is a powerful businessman from the United States, on a trip to Thailand to co-opt their resources. Emiko is an illegal synthetic human, a “Windup,” who is being forced to work in a sex club.
Emiko’s lack of power, choice and agency gives you a bad feeling immediately, and Anderson’s obsession with Emiko makes you feel even sicker. Emiko is kidnapped, bargained with and passed around while she longs for freedom, and Anderson seems truly convinced that he cares for her as all these things happen. The relationship is a grim reminder of how total power can corrupt, and how oblivious the person wielding this power can be to the damage they are doing.
Nick and Amy, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Never have two characters been so easy to hate. Gone Girl is a story about two terrible people being horrible to each other, and either actively or passively trying to ruin each other’s lives.
Nick is a cheater, self-obsessed with some ugly attitudes towards women. Amy is a calculating psychopath, willing to destroy anyone who gets in her way. The two of them are out to hurt one another however they can, and they drag the people around them into their twisted game.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of this book is the implication that, at the end of the day, maybe they are perfect for each other.
The Phantom/Erik and Christine, The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
Here’s some relationship advice: if you are trying to woo your lady, do the exact opposite of everything the Phantom does to Christine.
Do not stalk her from inside theater walls, do not imitate a character her dead father used to tell her about to get close to her, do not kidnap her, and do not threaten both her childhood love and a random patron of the theater that you’re secretly living in.
Though the story attempts to justify Erik’s behavior with a genuinely tragic backstory, it doesn’t really excuse the murder, kidnapping, and blatant manipulation. The fact that Christine sympathizes and cares about him by the end honestly makes this whole story worse!
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In my new novel, The Favorite Daughter, Jane and David created a seemingly perfect life together in sunny Southern California, until tragedy cracked the facade. As with most couples facing a devastating situation like the death of a daughter, the pair can either grow closer together or shatter. Right from the beginning of this domestic suspense, Jane is testing the waters to find out if their relationship can be salvaged.
Mistrust and disloyalty plague the marriage from the first pages of the book, and the first years of their relationship. Both are controlling; both are hiding things from each other with various levels of success; both are profoundly unhappy with one another. The tragedy is only a catalyst to bring all that unhappiness to the surface, with disastrous consequences.
