I’m planning to reread this later in the year, and will write more then, but for now, I love LOVED it – a stunning spin on ‘dark academia’ tropes, a sI’m planning to reread this later in the year, and will write more then, but for now, I love LOVED it – a stunning spin on ‘dark academia’ tropes, a story that turns itself upside down and shakes everything out. Not only is it a story about privilege and obsession and envy, it gets to the heart of something about why we are so endlessly fascinated by these stories. An instant favourite, to sit next to The Party, The Bellwether Revivals and Engleby....more
I absolutely cannot resist a ‘lost film’ horror novel, so, although I’ve struggled to get on with Tremblay’s books in the past, I was confident this wI absolutely cannot resist a ‘lost film’ horror novel, so, although I’ve struggled to get on with Tremblay’s books in the past, I was confident this would work for me. And it did! It’s the story of a cult film simply titled Horror Movie, as told by the only surviving member of its cast: the man who played a nebulous character known as the Thin Kid. I don’t want to describe the plot much beyond that; it’s one of those books best experienced with little knowledge of what is to come. It reminded me a lot of James Han Mattson’s Reprieve and John Darnielle’s Devil House, but at the same time, it’s doing almost the opposite of those books; a subversion of a subversion. That’s all I’m saying!
I received an advance review copy of Horror Movie from the publisher through NetGalley....more
The starting point for this anthology is Wellbrook High School, at which (we’re told) a terrible and infamous ‘Event’ took place in 1993, leaving onlyThe starting point for this anthology is Wellbrook High School, at which (we’re told) a terrible and infamous ‘Event’ took place in 1993, leaving only a handful of survivors. Styled as a recreation of the 1993 yearbook, For Tomorrow is a set of stories inspired by this premise. In many cases, surviving Wellbrook students are the protagonists, though some take a less direct approach. The setup also leaves a lot of room for stories that take place in different time periods, with some contributors opting for a nostalgic 90s setting and some the present day.
Three in particular stood out to me. ‘Amusements’ by Verity Holloway sees Libby setting herself up as a psychic in a fading British seaside town (a dependably great setting for horror); it seethes with sinister undercurrents and ambiguity. In ‘Habitual’ by Daniel Carpenter, a struggling Londoner is offered a job and flat in a luxurious, but weirdly empty, building. Featuring the best ending in the book, this story slots into the tradition of urban horror alongside Joel Lane and Gary Budden, and also reminded me a lot of Jonathan Sims’ Thirteen Storeys. Finally, there’s a pleasing 90s-urban-legend feel to ‘Hyperlink’ by Polis Loizou, which sees its internet-obsessed protagonist discovering some oddly addictive music online.
I also liked ‘Shadow Burdens’ by Charlotte Bond; tonally different from the rest, this story follows a woman who can see the shadow-like physical manifestations of people’s emotional burdens, and faces a dilemma when she meets someone with a different shadow to the rest. I knew I was going to like ‘Comments On This Video Have Been Disabled’ by James Everington based on the title alone, and it’s a great take on the ‘found footage’ trope that reminded me of Ray Cluley’s ‘6/6’. Speaking of which, ‘As I Want You To Be’ by Ray Cluley is another strong story, with what is perhaps the book’s best link to the events at Wellbrook, and Lucie McKnight Hardy’s ‘Carrion’ delivers an unnerving modern folk tale in the author’s signature style.
Part of me wishes there had been more ‘yearbook’ content to flesh out the nature of the Event and bring a more cohesive feel to the whole thing. But then again, the lack of specificity allows for a fun range of interpretations (working similarly to the Eden Book Society series from Dead Ink). I always find something interesting to read from Black Shuck Books, and they should definitely be on your radar if you’re interested in modern British horror writing....more
(3.5) Despite a title that seems to be in conversation with Kunzru’s two previous novels, White Tears and Red Pill, this book dispenses with its p(3.5) Despite a title that seems to be in conversation with Kunzru’s two previous novels, White Tears and Red Pill, this book dispenses with its predecessors’ touches of surrealism (the uncanny song in White, the prophetic TV show in Red) and tells a more straightforward story. The three main characters, all aspiring artists, are in a love triangle as students; many years later, one of them – Jay, now so destitute he’s living in his car – washes up at the luxurious home of the other two, married couple Alice and Rob. It’s also a pandemic novel, with all the key scenes set in the late spring/early summer of 2020. Characters’ panic about the virus manifests in a variety of ways (and is arguably the engine of the plot, too).
Much of the first half consists of Jay reflecting on his short, messy relationship with Alice; these scenes are well-written, but inconsequential. While Kunzru sketches a neat portrait of the young Jay – his naivety and idealism, as well as the late-90s London art scene through which he moves – I wasn’t sure why I should care, or where this was all going. Meanwhile, whenever we return to 2020, the dialogue between Jay, Alice, Rob and another couple has a sheen of unreality. Maybe it was just the Covid references, but I felt like I was watching actors perform a scene, rather than eavesdropping on a real conversation.
And I questioned whether this artificiality is deliberate; we are, after all, encouraged to wonder what is true about Jay. (A sculpture made of multiple, spiralling mirrors – which Jay visits several times, and is even moved to tears by – seems significant here. As does the belief, shared by almost everyone and thus communicated to the reader, that Jay’s presence is too wild a coincidence to have happened purely by chance.) I found Jay’s account of himself unconvincing. Are we supposed to think he’s lying? Partly because he’s still hung up on Alice after so long, it’s hard to believe Jay has had the rich life experience he claims; it’s as though he’s jumped from being a student straight into middle age. Which, of course, for the purposes of the story, he has. But should it feel quite so much like that’s the case? Is it meant to be so noticeable?
As I read Blue Ruin, and especially throughout the climax and ending, I kept thinking of questions like this – about the characters, and about the book. I found myself inventing and discarding theories about what was really going on, and whether some of the vaguely frustrating narrative techniques were a tricksy manoeuvre on the part of the author and/or his narrator (as in something like Ottessa Moshfegh’s Death in Her Hands). Should we ask whether this whole story is part of Jay’s performance art, or is that stretching the metaphor too far, inventing an authorial intention that isn’t there? Is it better for fiction to be thought-provoking than a good story? Even if so, is it enough for it to be thought-provoking?
The closing lines put such a neat cap on the story that they make it all seem weightless. As if Rob, Alice et al have disappeared in a puff of smoke. While it takes particular talent to write something that feels that way, I’m not sure I want to read books where the characters leave no impression. I’m left with mixed feelings about Blue Ruin. It’s more interesting to think about than to read. But then, sometimes I really enjoy that.
I received an advance review copy of Blue Ruin from the publisher through Edelweiss....more
This might be Hurley’s most accessible book yet, while at the same time also being perhaps his most ambitious. It’s a set of linked stories all set inThis might be Hurley’s most accessible book yet, while at the same time also being perhaps his most ambitious. It’s a set of linked stories all set in Barrowbeck, a valley on the Yorkshire-Lancashire border, progressing through time from the founding of its first settlement to its fate in the near future. As we learn more about Barrowbeck, the mood shifts from contemplative to ominous and back again. Barrowbeck contains some of the folk horror that’s become synonymous with the author’s name – but there’s also reflective historical fiction, hints of magic, a couple of excellent character studies, even a bit of sci-fi (the final story takes place in 2041).
The first five stories all have elements of scene-setting, though this doesn’t mean they’re uninteresting. ‘After the Fair’, which sees a girl attending a magical travelling fair where children can win tiny circus animals, has one of the most memorable premises in the book. ‘The Strangest Case’ is haunting; by contrast, ‘Hymns for Easter’ is one of the least chilling and most thoughtful, a story that effectively captures the shifting sands of history. It’s a theme that runs through the book: one version of the world is lost; all moves on.
‘Autumn Pastoral’ (my favourite) is such a wonderful story that it feels like a novel in itself. An art valuer visits a house in Barrowbeck that’s filled with paintings of the valley – part of a strange inheritance the house’s occupant left to an ex-lover as an act of spite. This is easily the creepiest and most atmospheric of the stories; I also felt it gave me a much stronger mental image of the valley than any of the others. In ‘Sisters’, it’s the rich character development that stands out. Its obsessive protagonist is captured so well, it hardly needs a macabre twist. ‘Covenant’ is vaguely Aickmanesque, loaded with portent: a house of mismatched believers, a curious New Year’s Eve tradition.
The strength of ‘An Afternoon of Cake and Lemonade’ lies in how it leaves the reader wondering. What exactly is the nature of Jason’s sinister ‘calling’? Where does it take him, after 1970? I liked many of the details in ‘A Celestial Event’, though the ending let it down; it needed to go a bit further, I think. ‘The Haven’ is good but maybe a bit too obviously aiming to tick all the boxes on a folk horror checklist.
Then there’s ‘A Valediction’, which is most effective as a way of tying everything together. As two environmental inspectors traverse the now-flooded valley by boat, they see remnants of its history, places and names the reader will recognise from the earlier stories. It’s an elegy for both Barrowbeck and the world in which it – in which we – existed. It’s common for folk horror stories to emphasise that ‘the land remembers’; in Barrowbeck, the river keeps flowing.
(PS: If, like me, you’ve listened to Hurley’s BBC audio series Voices in the Valley and have been wondering whether the stories in this book are the same – not exactly. Some have the same outline, but almost all have been rewritten or expanded for this book, in many cases significantly so. The book also has more stories (13) than the series has episodes (10). Most of the stories are much better for being fleshed out.)
I received an advance review copy of Barrowbeck from the publisher through NetGalley....more
‘The Closet Game’ is the standout of this collection. A closeted boy plays a game as a teen, and finds it comes back to haunt him as an adult – or, pe‘The Closet Game’ is the standout of this collection. A closeted boy plays a game as a teen, and finds it comes back to haunt him as an adult – or, perhaps, it’s the other way around. It embodies the ‘loss and longing’ theme: thwarted desire, the ache of missed chances. My personal favourite was ‘The Rental Sister’, a short, creepy, urban-legend-style tale in a colloquial style, about a young woman in Tokyo who briefly works in the titular role (designed to help hikikomori ease back into the world). ‘Giallo’ is everything you could want in a story called ‘Giallo’, capturing every aspect of the film genre so perfectly and vividly, you’ll never need to watch one again. The queasy, bloody ‘Conversion’ takes a more brutal tack, following a perverted therapist who successfully ‘converts’ an unhappily gay young man, but with horrifyingly extreme results.
I liked ‘The Oestridae’, in which two siblings are blindsided when a previously-unheard-of aunt turns up shortly after their mother’s disappearance. I couldn’t get on with the indulgent ‘The Cenacle’, and ‘My Heart’s Own Desire’ left me with a lot of questions. There’s also the fact that a large proportion of the book is taken up by a novella, ‘Anaïs Nin at the Grand Guignol’. It’s well-written, and a good expression of the collection’s project, so it doesn’t feel out of place; but it’s a big chunk of pages, and I felt I was missing something – some essential context that might have made it more satisfying.
This is a collection united by theme more than anything else, so it’s not easy to find any one point of comparison. After reading ‘The Closet Game’ and ‘The Oestridae’, I felt it was going to be a similar book to What Makes You Think You’re Awake? by Maegan Poland and The Ghost Sequences by A.C. Wise. Yet ‘Ceremonials’ and ‘Giallo’ might slot quite neatly into a Carmen Maria Machado collection, while at other points (e.g. ‘DST (Fall Back)’) I was reminded more of Lovecraftian stylists such as John Langan. In the end No One Dies from Love was a mixed bag for me, simply because the subject matter and particular brand of horror weren’t always to my taste – the stories lost me whenever they veered too far towards dark fantasy – but it was a book that left me impressed with Levy’s skills as a storyteller, and sure I’ll still read more from the author....more
Very quick read for a long train journey. This is a faux-true-crime oral history novel (one of my favourite niche things) about a small-town massacre Very quick read for a long train journey. This is a faux-true-crime oral history novel (one of my favourite niche things) about a small-town massacre in the early 2000s. A bunch of high schoolers set out to spend the night drinking and hooking up; then they hear a local urban legend, and quickly discover it is in fact very real. The setup is great, with lots of detail to establish the dynamic within the group, who’s lusting after who, etc. Unfortunately, it lost me a bit when it turned into flat-out gore in the second half. If that’s your thing, you’ll love it....more
Quite silly and very entertaining. You can probably glean everything you need to know about this book from the marketing tagline branding it ‘the darkQuite silly and very entertaining. You can probably glean everything you need to know about this book from the marketing tagline branding it ‘the dark academia event of 2024’. Like The Cloisters, it appears to have been written and published with this particular niche in mind, and also feels quite juvenile compared to the novels it strives to emulate – perhaps best suited to readers who are just making the jump from YA to adult fiction. It’s the tale of four scholarship students at a private school where the social hierarchies are strict and the bullying is relentless. While narrator Rose makes some headway towards fitting in, her eccentric roommate Marta is less fortunate. When a popular girl is involved in an accident, Marta is blamed and the central ‘four’ are dragged into a bizarre game of subterfuge. The story is told from an adult perspective by Rose, but aside from a brief epilogue, it doesn’t delve into the characters’ lives after these events, instead concentrating on their school experience only (which, again, makes the book feel like it has quite a young focus). At the same time, the miseries heaped on one character are so extreme that they start to tip the scale into parody. Still, I can’t deny the narrative power this book has. It held my attention and absorbed and compelled me when nothing else could. It’s a gripping story that’s best not taken too seriously.
I received an advance review copy of The Four from the publisher through NetGalley....more
This is pitched as a gothic coming-of-age novel set in a isolated coastal village, but that’s only part of the story. In the parts of the book entitleThis is pitched as a gothic coming-of-age novel set in a isolated coastal village, but that’s only part of the story. In the parts of the book entitled ‘The North Shore’, the young narrator is at home alone during a storm. The next morning, walking on the beach, they encounter what at first seems like a dead man. He revives – albeit coughing up impossible quantities of seaweed, and apparently unable to speak – before undergoing a bizarre transformation. ‘The North Shore’ itself reminded me of several writers who combine a strong sense of a specific place and beautiful landscape writing with the uncanny: Lucy Wood, Tim Cooke, Gary Budden. But swathes of the book, notably the sections ‘Knotty Entrails’ and ‘Knapped Flint’, slip into a more conversational style of (perhaps) autofiction that’s more in line with something like Edward Parnell’s Ghostland. In these, the narrator finds the ‘North Shore’ manuscript among some old papers, many years later. Unable to reconcile the written version of events with what they remember, they reflect on this seemingly distorted memory with reference to stories, myths and art about transformation, thresholds, the vast unknown.
The North Shore deliberately plays into ideas about liminality and ‘the instability of that state we call reality’; nothing is fixed or certain. It’s a novel that reads like non-fiction, hard to categorise. It’s natural to assume the narrator is male (if only because the author is), but as far as I can tell, their gender is never stated. At one point they glimpse their own reflection in a dream, and the language is intentionally vague, as if they are aware of themselves as a cipher: ‘the face is unfamiliar and I am not sure if it is a boy or a girl that looks back at me.’ The narrator starts to read like a ghost in their own story. They are ephemeral while the ‘dead’ man becomes – literally – more solid, more permanent.
The only elements that didn’t work for me were those relating to the narrator’s relationship with a childhood friend known only as ‘Quill’. This whole strand seems unfinished, and particularly bothered me as The North Shore is otherwise such an effective portrait of a solitary person – it’s as though Tufnell felt obliged to give his character at least one friend, but Quill’s presence in the story adds nothing, with the few letters that pass between the two reading as rather mawkish. This aside, I found this book very interesting – its combination of haunting fiction and more rational analysis, the sense of a narrator dismantling their own narrative as they go along, is strangely spellbinding. And even after all this dissection, the story still retains a sense of mystery....more
Barely a day goes by that I don’t think about Jen Silverman’s We Play Ourselves, so this was easily one of my most highly anticipated books of the yeaBarely a day goes by that I don’t think about Jen Silverman’s We Play Ourselves, so this was easily one of my most highly anticipated books of the year. Like Cass in Play, Minerva (known by the nickname Minnow) is a woman fleeing scandal. All but fired from her teaching job, she seizes the chance to take up a role in Paris, where she starts a relationship with a colleague 15 years her junior. Charles is the son of a wealthy and influential family, but he’s also a passionate activist who’s become embroiled in the gilets jaunes movement alongside his mercurial friend Luc. Unbeknownst to her, Minnow’s choices have parallels to those of her father, Christopher, long before she was born. In a parallel storyline, set 50 years earlier, we follow a young Christopher as he’s swept up in student protests at Harvard and falls in love with firebrand campaigner Olya.
This premise isn’t necessarily something that would have got my attention on its own, but with Silverman’s name attached, I was interested – and I’m so glad I was, because this is a masterfully crafted novel. The author’s background as a playwright seems to influence her writing in the best way: her ear for dialogue is matched only by her ability to write a perfect setpiece. So we get great, plausible debates between the characters; smart, snappy, but also believable as things people would actually say. Silverman has a gift for making something new and startling out of a cliche (it’s a tiny detail, but this book has possibly the best ‘parent meeting their new baby’ scene I’ve ever read). At times, the book is unexpectedly open – the mystery of what sent Minnow to Paris is dealt with swiftly, rather than being held back and used as a plot twist. The characters act in frustrating ways, and both central relationships seem obviously doomed to fail, but I don’t think we’re meant to be rooting for anyone here; this is a story about making mistakes and what happens afterwards, whatever that means.
I received an advance review copy of There’s Going to Be Trouble from the publisher through Edelweiss....more
I haven’t had much spare time in which to read recently, so my consumption of Kala was spread over a few spaced-out bursts, and I’m not sure whether tI haven’t had much spare time in which to read recently, so my consumption of Kala was spread over a few spaced-out bursts, and I’m not sure whether this helped my experience of the book or hindered it. Certainly I felt the pacing was off, which I’d probably just think a result of my disjointed reading if it wasn’t mentioned in so many other reviews. I also had a few reservations about the voices. But, but, it was a pleasure to be drawn into a world that felt so complete, and I loved the depth of the character work. This is what made Kala a success for me, ultimately; the plot is secondary to the people who populate this book, their relationships and memories. Like so many people who enjoyed this, I’m looking forward to the future novels Colin Walsh will write....more
Imagine Tana French writing a folklore-infused horror novel, and you have Knock Knock, Open Wide. This is a book that won’t be for everyone, simply beImagine Tana French writing a folklore-infused horror novel, and you have Knock Knock, Open Wide. This is a book that won’t be for everyone, simply because there is just a lot of stuff in it; it’s not one neat storyline, but a bunch that overlap and entwine, and there’s a lot of character work, details that could feel irrelevant if they weren’t so beautifully crafted. For me, it was one of those reading experiences where my delight increased as the story went along, where I thought more and more this was written for me! the more I read.
It’s about Etain, who is involved in a freak accident that leads her into a series of bizarre horrors, and how that night changes the rest of her life. It’s about Ashling, her daughter, and the woman Ashling falls in love with. It’s about a long-running TV series remembered differently by everyone who watched it (the kind of plot device I find irresistible even when done lazily – used unusually well here). It’s dark and sinister, but full of life and love, too.
I’d like more time to sit with Knock Knock, Open Wide but I am hopelessly behind on reviews with no prospect of catching up in the near future, so this will have to do for now. This is a book I absolutely adored, an instant favourite and a world I will return to.
I received an advance review copy of Knock Knock, Open Wide from the publisher through Edelweiss....more
Flux is a novel as dazzling and stylish as its bright-yellow cover. It’s a time-travel mystery filtered through its central character’s obsession withFlux is a novel as dazzling and stylish as its bright-yellow cover. It’s a time-travel mystery filtered through its central character’s obsession with a 1980s neo-noir detective show, and it also involves a suspiciously inert tech company led by a wunderkind entrepreneur (yes, there are Elizabeth Holmes/Theranos vibes here) – but at is heart is a story about family, grief, identity. Once the book hit its stride, I could hardly bear to tear myself away from it. Three narratives, each as compelling as the next, entwine to fantastic effect. The writing is excellent; the plot is beautifully structured and the details frequently unexpected, with the overall result reminding me of The Gone World, Reprieve and John Darnielle’s books. Equally thrilling and thoughtful.
I received an advance review copy of Flux from the publisher through NetGalley....more
I was attracted to the idea of this book – a horror novel disguised as a non-fiction book about the many strange incidents surrounding a cursed and/orI was attracted to the idea of this book – a horror novel disguised as a non-fiction book about the many strange incidents surrounding a cursed and/or haunted mountain – but even so, I was surprised by how much I loved it. I had the absolute time of my life reading this: it’s simply so enjoyable, so moreish. When I had it in my hands, I couldn’t stop reading, and when I was away from it, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Each section of the book focuses on a different inexplicable event on or around Mynydd Du, literally Black Mountain, through history (the chapters were originally released as ‘episodes’ in individual ebooks). There’s the failure of an ‘executive community’ made up of Futuro-style pod houses; the strange disappearance of a popular uni student; the ‘beast’ that terrorised a mining community – even the tale of a Roman general whose troops meet with a seemingly unbeatable foe. There are multiple layers of storytelling here: journalist Rob Markland sifts through the papers of doomed writer Russell Ware, and later we also get a certain Simon Bestwick jumping into the narrative. And in between the work of these characters, there are various interview transcripts, articles, diary entries, letters, forum posts, etc.
Many books of this type resort to a more conventional approach when it’s time to tie all the threads together, but in Black Mountain the montage-style narrative is sustained to the end. This – along with the thoughtfully written recurrence of various characters – makes the story feel not like a series of discrete segments, more like a rich and cleverly woven tapestry. Had I not already known, I would never have guessed it was originally published episodically. The fact that it seems so complete also really helps its effectiveness as horror. I’ve read/watched so much horror that I rarely find it unnerving anymore, but this gets genuinely creepy at times; after certain scenes, I kept thinking I could see something lurking in the shadows... It’s the book equivalent of a found-footage film in which you can’t help but be persuaded that a real threat lies beneath even the most unlikely of sequences.
Points of comparison for me are John Langan’s The Fisherman, the podcast The Magnus Archives, the film The Empty Man,the Six Stories series and Eliza Clark’s forthcoming Penance. If you like found-footage horror, mixed-media narratives and stories about cursed places, this book is for you. (Don’t be put off by the cover, I know it’s not the best, that’s so often the way with genre fiction published by small presses.) MANY more horror fans should know about Black Mountain....more
I remembered, I did not remember. And the strange thing was that, in the end, it came to exactly the same thing.
Just one of the best dark character stI remembered, I did not remember. And the strange thing was that, in the end, it came to exactly the same thing.
Just one of the best dark character studies™ I’ve ever read. Like The Collector and God’s Own Country in that we’re entirely immersed in one person’s dishonest and unreliable viewpoint, with direct glimpses into their victim/target’s perspective (in this case via the letters and diaries Engleby steals from Jennifer) underlined by an undertone in the storytelling (Engleby speaks of Jennifer as though she’s a friend, yet there’s never any dialogue between them). But this is also the story of its narrator’s whole life, and at points – especially when Engleby becomes a journalist and has some bizarre meetings with famous politicians of the 1980s – it felt like I was reading some unhinged alternate version of Any Human Heart. Faulks is also incredibly good at threading cutting insights into the bile: Engleby can be droning on about something and suddenly there’s an observation so arresting it stops you dead. I never wanted it to end....more
(3.5) I’d been saving a bunch of ‘holiday books’ (easy reads set in summer and/or abroad, mainly thrillers) until I actually went on a holiday; The Vi(3.5) I’d been saving a bunch of ‘holiday books’ (easy reads set in summer and/or abroad, mainly thrillers) until I actually went on a holiday; The Villa was the first of these I read while away, and definitely the best. It has a similar setup to The Writing Retreat, and also reminded me of The Witch in the Well: the frenemy relationship, the premise of a blocked writer holing up in a big gothic house in the hope of making progress on a book she’s barely started, flashbacks to another fraught period in the villa’s history. Initially, I found the chapters about modern-day friends Emily and Chess far more absorbing than the 1970s scenes featuring teenage writer Mari and her rock-star boyfriend. With a lot of plot and a swiftly paced narrative, the 70s characters do end up feeling a bit thin. It all eventually comes together, though, and I thoroughly enjoyed the twisty ending. Plus, the vivid, colourfully imagined setting is just what you want from a book called The Villa....more
When I love a book, I sometimes find it very hard to write a review: I just want to scream incoherently about how great it is. When I hate a book, it When I love a book, I sometimes find it very hard to write a review: I just want to scream incoherently about how great it is. When I hate a book, it can be equally difficult: I don’t want to waste energy on articulating my issues with it properly. It’s often the books in the grey areas in between that I find myself with the most to say about. I had a lot of problems with I Have Some Questions For You, but I also recognise that the fact I’m compelled to articulate them, examine them, is a form of praise, because this means I really want to engage with the book. I wanted to like it more than I do, and the following ‘review’ ought to be understood more as a series of notes in which I try to work through the reasons it didn’t work for me.
The narrator, Bodie Kane, is a successful podcaster in her early forties. As a teenager, she attended a prestigious boarding school, Granby, where she felt like an outsider. In their senior year, her popular roommate Thalia was murdered. The supposed killer – Omar, a young man who worked at the school as an athletic trainer – was convicted quickly, but the evidence was flimsy and there’s always been speculation about his guilt. When Bodie is invited back to the school to teach a course, she becomes newly obsessed with the case; through adult eyes, she sees something suspicious in Thalia’s close relationship with a music teacher. One of Bodie’s students decides to make her own podcast about Thalia’s death, opening up even more questions. Meanwhile, Bodie’s semi-estranged husband is accused of coercive behaviour by a younger ex-girlfriend, and her (Bodie’s) married lover seems to be growing distant. (Yes, there’s quite a lot going on.)
I was so looking forward to a version of the true-crime-podcast story from a writer as good as Rebecca Makkai, whose The Great Believers I adored, whose ‘The November Story’ is an all-time favourite. But I Have Some Questions For You is significantly undercooked as a thriller, and too overwhelmed by plot for it to be satisfying at the character development level. What it is, more than anything, is a #MeToo novel – a concept that seems baffling, dead in the water, in 2022, particularly after books like My Dark Vanessa and True Story have tackled similar subject matter so successfully.
There’s some value, I guess, in telling this type of story from the perspective of a watchful outsider, a person detached from the true harm, but frustratingly, the most interesting points thrown up by that are just not explored. There’s this moment where a woman, one of her former classmates, tells Bodie she was ‘safe’ from creepy adult men as a teen, with the obvious implication being that she (the younger Bodie) was too unattractive to be a target for them. And THAT’S interesting – both the idea itself, which is surely worth further discussion, and also the way this woman, who was a victim herself, so blithely throws it out there, assuming she’s right. Yet Bodie barely examines it!
Similarly, we’re shown how Bodie’s continuing attachment to her ‘outsider’ status leads her to place too much emphasis on what she endured at school – some bullying and mockery which, sure, is horrible, but hardly in the same league as being groomed by an abuser – while completely dismissing her husband’s accuser. The book never really gets into the hypocrisy of this. It’s like... we’re meant to see the irony, but nothing is done with it. Is this the whole point? That Bodie is a vulture, exploding the Thalia case to centre herself while ignoring situations in which she could truly make a positive impact? Certainly, the way Omar’s perspective is filtered through Bodie’s feels patronising. Almost the only way I can read the book favourably is to see Bodie as a (the?) villain, and though I’m sure she’s deliberately flawed, I doubt that’s the intention.
Bodie’s ruminations on how girls are conditioned to accept exploitation are not without merit, but they aren’t particularly fresh or interesting. My Dark Vanessa is so much more visceral; True Story achieves a more thought-provoking effect by varying its perspective and digging into how these stories get told; Death of a Bookseller and the Six Stories books engage more productively with questions around the ethics of true crime. Here, every seemingly intriguing idea is flattened into a hackneyed ‘There Is A Lot Of Misogyny’ message achieved through methods like the recital of a litany of faceless/nameless victims alongside details of what happened to them (a device I really cannot stand), or the anodyne horror of an adult woman realising that yes, a teacher sleeping with teenagers is Bad (who would have thought!!)
A lot of my problems with this book boil down to the fact that it feels like it is trying to Say Something, and what it is trying to Say is so stale, and – I realise this is completely unfair – what I wanted from Makkai was another meaty literary novel with some expansive subplot that shouldn’t be fascinating but is, like the art bequest thing in The Great Believers. There is a real art to writing a compelling crime/thriller narrative, and this is never more apparent than when a talented author of literary fiction doesn’t quite pull it off. This is not a bad book – it’s too well-written to be bad – but I think what I’ll remember about it is my frustration over the most promising parts of the narrative being squandered.
I received an advance review copy of I Have Some Questions for You from the publisher through Edelweiss.
Ray Cluley’s stories boast virtually flawless exposition and worldbuilding. And they’re all so different. Whether we’re in a Bangladesh shipyard (‘SteRay Cluley’s stories boast virtually flawless exposition and worldbuilding. And they’re all so different. Whether we’re in a Bangladesh shipyard (‘Steel Bodies’), a 1950s US airbase (‘Sideways’), or with a group of thrill-seekers skydiving in Mexico (‘Adrenaline Junkies’), the setting is beautifully depicted and the characters all feel like they’re real people with full, detailed histories. I wish I could say that I loved the stories themselves just as much, but a lot of them turn out to be monster stories, which just aren’t my thing, unfortunately. Nevertheless there was much I enjoyed here, including the dark humour in ‘Mary, Mary’, the landscape horror of ‘In the Wake of My Father’, and – particularly – the lost film story ‘6/6’. I’d heard about this, as it was published as a limited-edition chapbook I’d given up hope of ever getting hold of, and was elated to find it here. Its seemingly impassive account of a number of deleted YouTube videos is mesmerising, eerie and clever.
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