54 pages • 1 hour read
Freida McFaddenThe Coworker
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 8-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary: “Seven Months Earlier”
The narrative describes emails that Dawn sent seven months prior. First, Dawn emails an Etsy seller to complain that a figurine advertised as a sea turtle is in fact a land turtle. She provides a detailed description of why the turtle is anatomically incorrect. The Etsy seller replies, asking if Dawn’s messages are “a joke.”
In an email to Mia, Dawn describes buying an expensive hand-painted turtle figurine for Natalie. She relates that Natalie seemed surprised by the gift and did not thank her. Afterward, Dawn suggested that she could join Natalie and Kim for lunch. However, Natalie claimed that they would be planning Kim’s wedding. Dawn pointed out that, as an unmarried woman, Natalie had no experience of weddings and would be statistically unlikely to find a husband at her age. Natalie seemed to take offense at these facts. Mia replies to Dawn, asserting that Natalie should have thanked her for the gift.
Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary: “Present Day: Natalie”
Natalie’s mother calls after learning that a Vixed employee has gone missing. She claims that Natalie needs a husband to take care of her. Feeling anxious, Natalie returns to her house in Dorchester, an expensive rental area. She receives a silent call from a withheld number. Natalie recalls that there was a time when she regularly received threatening calls.
Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary
The next day, news reports confirm that Dawn has not been found. At work, Natalie notices that the turtle figurine she pushed to the back of her desk is now once again positioned at the front of the desk. She throws the turtle in the garbage just before she is summoned to Seth’s office.
Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary
Seth says Detective Santoro is on his way and wants to speak to all the staff. He also reveals that he has separated from his wife Melinda and asks if Natalie is still dating Caleb.
Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary: “Six Months Earlier”
The narrative emails that Dawn sent six months prior. She writes several emails to Seth announcing her creation of a fridge-cleaning rotation, but he does not reply.
In an email to Mia, Dawn describes a recent work meeting in which Seth praised Natalie’s sales figures but told the rest of the staff that they needed to improve. Eager to help the company economize, Dawn pointed out that clients often did not buy enough products to justify the expense of taking them to lunch. Natalie was unhappy with Dawn’s suggestion that her activities created a loss for the company and described her lunches as long-term investments. Dawn reminds Mia how her parents always wanted her to be “normal.” She also mentions that her largest turtle figurine is “the size of a basketball” (86). Dawn jokes that if anyone breaks into her house, she could hit them over the head with it. Mia replies, promising that she and her husband George will visit soon.
Part 1, Chapter 13 Summary: “Present Day: Natalie”
Detective Santoro arrives at Vixed. He approaches Natalie first, asking to speak to her in the conference room.
Part 1, Chapter 14 Summary
Detective Santoro reveals that he has checked records of the incoming phone calls to Vixed. At the time Natalie claimed that she answered Dawn’s phone, the only calls were internal. The detective reveals that Natalie’s fingerprints have been found on two knives in Dawn’s house and a wine glass on the kitchen counter. Natalie states that she must have touched the items before a crime had occurred. She also claims that she never found out why Dawn wanted to meet with her so urgently.
Part 1, Chapter 15 Summary: “Six Months Earlier”
Six months earlier, Dawn sends a series of emails to Seth with data on the savings that Vixed would make by limiting Natalie’s expensive lunches with clients. He finally replies to state that he does not intend to implement her suggestions.
In an email to Mia, Dawn describes finding her turtle mug broken at work and relates Natalie’s suggestion that Dawn must have been “careless” enough to leave the mug on the edge of the shelf. Dawn recalls once advising Natalie to be more careful as to where she placed her own mug. Mia replies, promising that she will buy Dawn another mug. She adds that her brother is staying with her and reminds Dawn that, years earlier, she “had a bit of a crush on him” (103).
Part 1, Chapter 16 Summary: “Present Day: Natalie”
Natalie keeps a nervous eye on the conference room, noticing that Detective Santoro interviews Seth for a long time. She is also surprised when Caleb is questioned, since he barely knew Dawn. Afterward, Caleb assures her that he kept to the agreed story. When Caleb declines her offer of dinner that night, Natalie fears that she may have driven him away.
Part 1, Chapter 17 Summary
Returning home, Natalie receives another silent call from a withheld number. On the news, Detective Santoro tells reporters that they now have a suspect in the case. Natalie texts an unspecified person, asking them to come over.
Part 1, Chapter 18 Summary: “Five Months Earlier”
Seth emails his wife, telling her to have dinner without him because he will have to work late.
In an email to Mia dated five months earlier, Dawn describes arriving at work to find Seth’s wife by Natalie’s desk. Looking distressed, Melinda left a note threatening to kill Natalie if Natalie did not stay away from Seth. Natalie caught Dawn reading the message and warned her not to tell anyone about the incident. Alarmed by her coworker’s aggressive tone, Dawn knocked Natalie’s turtle figurine off the desk, breaking it. Dawn tells Mia that she now realizes that Seth and Natalie must be having an affair. She wonders if keeping Natalie’s secret will strengthen her relationship to her coworker.
Part 1, Chapter 19 Summary: “Present Day: Natalie”
When Seth arrives at her house, Natalie has sex with him, insisting that it is “a one-off” (119). Their former affair came to an end when Melinda started threatening Natalie. Concerned for her own safety at the time, Natalie bought a can of mace to protect herself.
Part 1, Chapter 20 Summary: “Four Months Earlier”
Four months before the novel’s primary timeline, petty emails between Natalie and Kim speculate on whether Dawn has had sex before. The women conclude that if their coworker has ever had sex, it would be with a turtle.
Natalie receives an email from a customer named Zelda Morris that complains about the product Collahealth. Zelda lists debilitating side effects, including hair loss, dizziness, and burning skin. She also points out that Natalie advised her to double the dosage when she learned about the symptoms. Zelda reveals that her eyesight is now failing, and her doctor attributes her illness to Collahealth’s ingredients. Zelda threatens Natalie with a lawsuit.
In an email to Mia, Dawn describes answering Natalie’s phone. The customer claimed that Collahealth had given her red, peeling skin. When Dawn related the message, Natalie was dismissive of the woman’s information and laughed at the suggestion that she use Vixed’s products herself. Egged on by Kim, Natalie asked Dawn if she had ever had sex. In the email, Dawn admits to Mia that she has never had sex before. Mia replies, warning Dawn to have nothing more to do with Natalie.
Part 1, Chapter 21 Summary: “Present Day: Natalie”
Natalie finds Detective Santoro parked outside her house. He asks if she ever made fun of Dawn, for example, suggesting that she had sex with turtles. Natalie admits that she may have joked about it. Detective Santoro says several of Natalie’s colleagues have claimed that she excluded Dawn from social events and bullied her. He also breaks the news that Dawn’s dead body has been found.
Part 1, Chapter 22 Summary
Detective Santoro reveals that Dawn was beaten to death and died of head injuries. Natalie is horrified.
Part 1, Chapters 8-22 Analysis
Throughout this section of the novel, the author uses a variety of unreliable narrators to inject a sense of ambiguity and create a disorienting effect; this technique is a popular conceit of psychological thrillers. As the mystery slowly unfolds, the sporadic bits and pieces of information imply that Natalie’s account of events might not be fully trustworthy, especially as mounting evidence combines with Dawn’s past accounts of Natalie’s cruel behavior to create an overall impression of Natalie’s guilt. Meanwhile, convincing motivations for murder emerge as Dawn describes incidents that may have fueled Natalie’s desire to kill her. For example, Dawn’s exposure of Natalie’s extravagantly expensive client lunches tarnishes the saleswoman’s excellent reputation, and Dawn’s bleak appraisal of Natalie’s marriage prospects also provides an unwelcome reminder of the encroaching effects of age upon her appearance. In these scenes, McFadden deliberately mixes elements of humor with dramatic irony, for the narrative has already revealed that Natalie views her lack of a husband as a personal failure. However, Dawn—who is merely eager to share facts and figures—remains oblivious to the negative social effects of her comments.
Throughout these chapters, Dawn’s past emails gain increasing relevance to the present events that unfold through Natalie’s perspective. For instance, Dawn’s account of discovering Natalie’s affair with Seth coincides with Natalie’s own admission of an intimate relationship with her boss. Despite an earlier description of Seth as “cute,” Natalie has withheld this information from her narrative up to this point, disingenuously declaring that the state of his marriage is “none of [her] business” (20). As well as underlining Natalie’s unreliability as a narrator, the revelation highlights the theme of The Intricacies of Office Politics, for Seth’s sexual interest in Natalie explains why he unfairly favors her over other staff members. Additionally, just as he is too quick to praise Natalie’s sales figures, his attraction to her also leads him to ignore her faults as an employee. Consequently, he dismisses Dawn’s discovery that the company is taking a loss due to Natalie’s expensive business lunches with her clients.
The Deceptive Nature of Appearances is also further explored in this section as Natalie’s good looks conflict with her emerging character flaws. Dawn’s description of Natalie’s glowing skin and painted nails “without a scratch or defect on them” (83) is designed to contrast with her coworker’s dishonesty and lack of a moral compass. Lying to the police with ease, Natalie worries that her boyfriend Caleb “is too honest” (106) to maintain her false alibi, and her cavalier attitude toward the potential side effects of the products she sells also stands out in these chapters. It is quite telling that Natalie’s conscience does not trouble her as she promotes a harmful product that she would never consider using herself. The debilitating symptoms caused by Collahealth also underline the role of Vixed as a motif in the novel, for the company’s very nature encapsulates The Deceptive Nature of Appearances even as its unethical business practices recklessly exploit its customers’ desires to look youthful. Significantly, Dawn’s emails once again act as a counterpoint to these patterns, for she draws attention to the dubious efficacy of Vixed’s products and points out that “there is absolutely no data whatsoever to prove any of the products work better than a placebo” (65). The protagonists’ differing attitudes to Vixed therefore highlight their contrasting value systems well before the more insidious aspects of the women’s recent actions and past histories come to light.
It is also important to note that McFadden exploits the techniques of the psychological thriller in these chapters by creating a series of red herrings that introduce a sense of empathy for Dawn even as they craft a negative portrayal of Natalie. This effect is further heightened as Dawn’s emails describe her unsuccessful attempts to befriend her coworker. Dawn’s apparent perseverance in forging a bond with Natalie, even in the face of the other woman’s hostility, suggests that Dawn possesses a certain naiveté. However, as subsequent events will reveal, Dawn’s presentation of herself as Natalie’s scapegoat is really a calculated ploy designed to mislead anyone who reads her emails, particularly the police. Crafted with an artful combination of fact and fiction, the sole purpose of Dawn’s emails is to frame Natalie for a murder that has not taken place. Thus, when later chapters reveal that Dawn is actually alive and well, this long-term, calculated deception introduces the novel’s larger exploration of The Fine Line Between Victim and Perpetrator. By weaving verifiable facts into her emails, such as her social ostracization as a child, Dawn also adds credibility to her presentation of herself as Natalie’s victim. Creating a damning portrait of her coworker as the perpetrator, she plants incriminating red herrings throughout her narratives of recent events. For example, Dawn’s observation that her largest turtle figurine could be used to kill an intruder draws attention to the ornament as a potential murder weapon. Also, a major red herring is the discovery of Dawn’s body, for this event seems to confirm beyond all doubt that Dawn has been brutally murdered, and it is only in Part 2 that McFadden reveals that Dawn is still alive.
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