Woolcombe
Xan Lyppiatt’s ancestral home and the place where Theo Faron spent his summer holidays as a child, Woolcombe represents the lifelong imbalance of power between cousins Theo and Xan, and the resulting tensions that…
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Theo’s Diary
At the start of the novel, Theo Faron has just begun keeping a diary—the first page of the book is his first entry. As it is both “the first day of a new year and…
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Natalie
In 1994—over twenty-five years before the start of the book’s narrative, and the year before Year Omega, the end of fertility—Theo accidentally backed his car over his only daughter, fifteen-month-old Natalie, while leaving…
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The Coronation Ring
The Coronation Ring, or “the wedding ring of England,” as Theo refers to it, is an ornate and “vulgar” bauble which Xan wears as a symbol of his absolute, unquestioned power as the Warden of…
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