Love: A Novel

Content Warning: This section discusses racism, sexual assault, child abuse, child marriage, and violence, as they appear in the narrative.

Though Bill Cosey is a central figure in the novel, he is long dead by the time the book begins in the 1990s. Many of the novel’s plot points, such as the fight over the will, revolve around the difficulty of interpreting Cosey’s intentions and behavior. Throughout the novel, Bill Cosey’s portrait is a symbol that represents Cosey himself. Every character in the novel has different reactions to Cosey’s portrait and their difference in interpretations point to the man’s ambiguity.

For Vida Gibbons, the portrait represents Cosey as a “powerful, generous friend” when it hangs behind the reception desk where she works (44). It reminds her that Cosey is her and her family’s benefactor and that his generosity has helped establish their financially stable (though not wealthy) lifestyle. Sandler Gibbons privately disagrees with this interpretation, believing that Cosey is looking at Celestial, his mistress, with the pride of “first ownership” (44). To him, the portrait represents Cosey’s duplicity and his belief that wealth entitles him to power over others.

Junior is attracted to the portrait before she even knows who Cosey is, calling him “her Good Man” (115). She thinks that they “recognized each other the very first night when he gazed at her from his portrait” (31). Her desire to be chosen, protected, and loved are projected onto the portrait and hence onto Cosey. After the closure of the hotel, Heed moves the portrait above her bed and sees it as emblematic of her “wonderful man” (25). The closeness of the portrait to her bedchamber underscores her belief that he was watching over her and that she is the rightful owner of the hotel. In contrast, Christine sees the portrait as disturbing due to her resentful feelings about her grandfather and his legacy. As she goes about her chores in the house, she is trying not to shiver before the “‘come on’ eyes in the painting over that grotesque bed” (96). In this sense, the portrait as Cosey’s surrogate represents the enduring nature of Christine and other characters’ trauma.