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How can I be so sure of this? How can I trust myself to be sure of anything when I’m obviously biased in what I’m willing to see? Partially it’s because I’ve spent my life needing to see. I’ve spent my life paying incredibly close attention. When my mother left for good, I didn’t see it coming. I missed it.
In “Follow the Money,” Hannah reflects on why she is so focused on verifying her beliefs about Owen. For Hannah, her sense of self connects inextricably with this knowledge. With Jules, another person she trusts fully, Hannah is introspective and intelligent enough to realize that impartiality about the man she loves is impossible. Indeed, the inherent bias she recognizes in her knowledge permeates her memories in the entire novel, with her interpretations of what she thinks she knows changing according to what she believes at the time. Nonetheless, she is perceptive enough to understand that this desire for certainty stems from her childhood sense of abandonment. Still, Hannah starts the novel with black-and-white views about what she knows about herself, her husband, and her relationship. By the novel’s end, what she learns about Owen vindicates her initial perceptions and instincts, though she also has to accept that reality remains far messier than what she wanted it to be. Hannah essentially has to accept that Owen can be the good man, husband, and father she knows him to be but also that he lied to her
"Einstein said, "So far as the theories of mathematics are about reality, they are not certain; so far as they are certain, they are not about reality."
Bailey tilts her head. "Still waiting on the English there, Professor," she says.
"It basically means, we don’t know sh*t about anything," he says.
In “Some Students Are Better Than Others,” Tobias attempts to reassure Hannah and Bailey by citing Albert Einstein. According to Einstein, reality and certainty exist in a paradoxical relationship. The passage humorously acknowledges the difficulties with establishing knowledge by having Bailey sarcastically ask Tobias to translate the abstract language into English. Nicholas later reinforces this premise with his own comment about nobody ever really knowing anything. However, the novel does not fully endorse the concept. Tobias provides a definition of the quotation’s broader meaning, and he still insists to them that the Owen he knew was a good person. Clearly, for Tobias, people can know some things with certainty. The quote, however, indicates that the women’s insistence on a fixed idea of—or infallible truth about—Owen will backfire. Ironically, embracing the idea that uncertainty is acceptable, even necessary, leads them to finding the deeper truth about Owen. By the end, both women see that the man they thought they knew existed all along, despite everything they did not and cannot know.
“Not usually, but you’re a lawyer," I say. "Isn’t convincing people a large part of the job?"
He smiles. "I think that you’re confusing me with a prosecutor," he says. "A defense attorney, at least a good defense attorney, never tries to convince anyone of anything. We do the opposite. We remind everyone you can’t know anything for sure.”
In this conversation from “You Have to Do Some Things on Your Own,” Hannah and Nicholas joust over what an attorney does. Hannah contends that a lawyer like Nicholas works through persuasion. Nicholas, however, retorts that his work actually involves undermining what people think they know. To Nicholas, his work in the law is distinct from finding the truth or proving something conclusively. Nicholas believes he will win the argument by undermining everything Hannah believes to be true about Owen, but this strategy proves ineffective, since Hannah has already developed a different understanding of what she can and cannot know about Owen. Nicholas assumes he knows more than she does, not only about Owen but also about how to win an argument. By not falling for Nicholas’s assumption, she surprises him and also succeeds in striking a successful deal with him. The fact Hannah has already accepted the limits of her knowledge makes her much less susceptible to Nicholas’s attempts to prey on her vulnerabilities.
