The Cast At A Glance
Imperfect Women has three leads and a handful of people who matter a lot, so here is who is who, with no spoilers.
The novel is by Araminta Hall, published in twenty twenty. It follows three friends who met in their first week at Oxford, and it is told in three parts, one for each of them.
Eleanor Meakins
Eleanor is the first voice you hear. She runs a small aid charity that she set up herself, and she lives in a flat on the top floor of a house in London.
She is the sensible one, and she knows it. She is loyal, and also quietly resentful of how easy life has been for her friends. She is the one who gets the phone call in the dark, and she is the one who tells the police what she knows.
What drives her is guilt. She spends the book wondering if she could have said something kinder on the last night she saw her friend, and she is not good at forgiving herself.
Nancy Hennessy
Nancy is the one everyone looks at. She is a translator who turns French books into English, she has long been the golden one of the group, and she is married to Robert with a grown daughter.
The book describes her as someone who could have done anything and committed to little. Eleanor sees her as dramatic, and says she creates trouble where there is none. Nancy calls herself melodramatic and a mess, and her part of the book shows how far that is from the whole truth.
She is also the centre of the plot. Nancy has been having an affair, and she goes to meet her lover on the night she dies.
Mary
Mary is the third friend. She once dreamed of a life in academia, immersed in the world of Greek gods, and she now has a house crowded with children, a tight budget, and a marriage that has worn her down.
She is funny, tired and observant. In the third part of the book, she changes the most, and her section is where the story pays off.
How The Friends Fit Together
It helps to know how the three balance. Eleanor is the dependable one, and she often feels like the third wheel next to Nancy and Robert. Nancy is the dazzling one, who needs reassurance all the time. Mary is the stretched one, who has the least money and the most to lose.
They use pet names. Eleanor is Els or Ellie, and Nancy is Nance. Those nicknames tell you how close they are, and how much they have not said to one another.
Robert Hennessy
Robert is Nancy’s husband, a human rights lawyer, blond and solid, with sharp blue eyes. He is the kind of man everyone assumes is good and steady.
When Nancy goes missing, he is the one who rings Eleanor in the middle of the night. He is grieving, he is hiding something, and the book keeps you wondering whether you can trust his calm.
Zara
Zara is Nancy and Robert’s daughter, eighteen, at university in Oxford. She is the person Nancy worries about most, and the one who suffers most visibly after her mother’s death. She calls Eleanor late at night, in tears, and Eleanor feels responsible for her.
Howard And The Smithson Family
Mary’s husband is Howard, an academic who dominates the house. The family also includes three children: Marcus, the eldest, who is a sullen teenager when we meet him, and the girls, Mimi and Maisie.
Mimi is fifteen. Maisie is younger. Marcus is the one Mary worries about, and the one Eleanor tries to help by finding him volunteer work.
Without giving anything away, this household is where the book’s most uncomfortable scenes happen.
Nancy’s Mother, Pearl
Pearl is Nancy’s mother. Her husband, the composer Sir Hank Rivers, has died. After her daughter’s death she sits in the study, quiet and stunned, and the book shows where Nancy got her looks. She appears briefly, but she says something that helps you understand Nancy.
Irena
Irena is Eleanor’s downstairs neighbour, an elderly woman who came from Poland more than fifty years earlier and has lived in the house ever since. She is small, sharp, and points people to their chairs with her walking stick.
She is also the book’s warmest character. Her daughter Sarah looks after her from a distance. Eleanor visits on Thursday nights, and Irena is where she runs to when she cannot cope.
The Press
Reporters camp outside Nancy’s house, and the coverage shapes how everyone behaves. The headlines call the death a crime of passion, and the talk shows discuss affairs as if Nancy were a case study. This is part of why Eleanor feels she must protect her friend’s memory.
Davide Boyette And The Police
Davide Boyette is a novelist, and Nancy once translated some of his books. He is drawn into the case, through no fault of his own, and the press treats him like a villain. The police side is led by Detective Sergeant Daniels, who is more interested in speed than in comfort.
What Each Woman Wants
Think of it as three different kinds of longing. Eleanor wants to be needed and to be forgiven, and she suspects she is neither. Nancy wants to be seen as more than her face, and told she is wonderful. Mary wants a way out of a life she keeps tidying instead of changing.
The book is generous to all of them. It lets them be selfish, petty and unfair to each other, and it still asks you to love them.
Which Character Is Which In The Series
For the series, the reported cast lists Kerry Washington as Eleanor, Elisabeth Moss as Mary and Kate Mara as Nancy. Joel Kinnaman is Robert and Corey Stoll is Howard. I cannot compare them with the book, because I have only read the novel.
Who To Start With
A quick tip on reading order inside the book. Part one is Eleanor, part two is Nancy, part three is Mary. Each one changes how you see the other two, so I would not skip ahead. By the end, you will probably feel differently about every person on this list than you did at the start, and that is the book doing exactly what it set out to do.
If you are new to the book, start with Eleanor, because the novel does. If you finish, you can read my ending explained for the full answer, which has spoilers.
That is the cast. Thanks for watching, and tell me in the comments which of the three friends you relate to most.
