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Jess’ brother Ben is a handsome, charming, and ambitious young man who moves to Paris to work as a journalist. Though he is absent for most of the novel, he nevertheless plays a central role in the mysterious events that have taken place in the apartment complex. Throughout the course of the novel, various characters recount their interactions with Ben in the weeks prior to Jess’ arrival in Paris, each one revealing a different aspect of Ben’s complex and multifaceted personality. These recollections suggest that Ben has a chameleon-like ability to blend into his surroundings, skillfully adapting his persona to impress and charm others. With his knack for saying the right thing at the right time, Ben slowly worms his way into the lives of his neighbors in order to collect information about them.
When he moves into the apartment building, he ingratiates himself with the powerful patriarch of the Meunier family, but he also takes time to get to know the working-class concierge of the building. Though he is willing to flatter and appease others, he does so not out of genuine kindness but to further his own ambitions. While Jess loves her brother, Theo, a newspaper editor, offers a more critical assessment of Ben, whom he regards as manipulative and self-invested. In some ways, the glib and smooth-talking Ben serves as a foil for Jess in the novel. Though they were both raised in difficult circumstances, Ben was adopted by a wealthy family after their mother’s death and has learned to fit in among the rich and powerful, where Jess navigates similar social spaces clumsily and reluctantly.
