Novels: No. 6 (LL 324)

 

Rebecca Makkai. I Have Some Questions for You. USA: Viking/Penguin RandomHouse, 2023.

Successful podcaster Elizabeth "Bodie" Kane, based in L.A., goes to her old school, Granby in New Hampshire, to give two short-term extracurricular courses. She scripts her own podcast about true crime stories where women are victims. Her new podcast students are keen to learn the ropes; Britt, in particular, wants to base her assignment on Thalia Keith, a Granby student who died during Bodie's time there. Bodie is wary, but secretly pleased, that Britt will do the research—a project of intense interest to herself. In revealing her history before and while attending Granby, she is apparently addressing Mr. Bloch, her former music teacher. Thalia's death in the swimming pool was deemed murder and a staff employee, Omar Evans, was convicted. Rumours and wild internet theories continued to swirl for years.

The novel is four hundred-plus pages basically centred on examining or interpreting each interactive detail of Thalia's life that evening. Was it murder? Or a dreadful accident? Was Omar even the guilty person? Bodie knew Thalia as an admirable, attractive, kind acquaintance; she doesn't know every single thing that occurred that night, but she can fantasize different students acting as killers. As if she doesn't have enough distractions over ex-husband Jerome's public clash with misguided feminists, or the hesitant behaviour of her lover Yavah. Convinced that Omar is innocent, Bodie's questions continue; who really killed Thalia? How far can she go to influence (manipulate?) a judicial review of Omar's case? Britt's developing podcast is a start. Friends Fran and Geoff, her students, hostile Beth, even trash podcaster Dane Rubra, all become resources.

In the hands of such a distinguished writer, it's seductive, this journey into Bodie's now-mature observations of her teenage peers and self. Touching on the #MeToo movement and all the ways a woman can be unjustly degraded, it also focuses on the tough battles to overturn wrongful convictions.

Bodie

▪ I was just self-aware enough at this point to clock that I was talking Britt into it, and to wonder why. (38)

▪ We were so quick to spread lurid gossip, but so void of concern. Perhaps because we believed we were adults. (51)

▪ Beth was the star of that pair, the singer, a blonde Christy Turlington, the one who'd made flirting an art form. ... Beth Docherty was responsible for my greatest humiliation at Granby. (101)

▪ Having married Jerome when he was thirty-nine, I can attest that he was still in most ways a child, as he continues to be. (129)

▪ "So you called Mr. Bloch a creeper." (149)

▪ I typed out a thread of messages with my pruning thumbs, posting each after a quick scan for drunken typos. (164)

▪ I remember you saying to my mother, "Bodie's been my Girl Friday the past three years. I wish I could clone her." (264)

▪ "I'm going to buy you a drink downstairs and then I'll get out of your hair forever." (404)

Others

▪ "I'm concerned about the tropes of true crime, the way it's turned into entertainment." (36, Britt)

▪ "Dude, " someone said. "You've never seen fireflies?" (67)

▪ Britt had tried reaching out to Omar himself, through his lawyer, but hadn't heard back. She'd decided to structure the podcast around unanswered questions. (137)

▪ "Forgive me if I don't have a ton of sympathy for the guys whose DNA was all over her." (155, Fran)

▪ "I have no idea who these people are," Fran said, "but no, you don't quit your job over this." (232)

▪ Then he said, "Post-conviction litigation is a nightmare. Unless you got a video of someone else doing it, the reality is they're not letting Mr. Evans out." (259, Yavah)

▪ She said, "You didn't witness jack shit, Bodie. This whole thing is the most pathetic attention grab." (345, Beth)

Laura Sims. How Can I Help You. Ebook download from TPL. NY: Putnam/Penguin Random House, 2023.

I tried, okay?

But the main character was strongly reminiscent of more than one real-life nurse (sometimes an imposter) known to kill off the elderly. In this case, the motivation seems to be not compassion or mercy, but self-gratification on a chilling level. She watches the eyes with a greedy appetite as her patients die. Wherever this is going, possibly into some psychosomatic consideration, it goes without me. Give the author credit: she created a ghoul so well, I was nauseous.

I do believe this is a first; my gut said put this away. Those with stronger stomachs who read to the last page, feel free to chime in.

Sam Lypsite. No One Left to Come Looking for You. USA: Simon & Schuster, 2022.

If you can believe a punk band in 1993 called Shits (or is it The Shits?), you will understand why its founder Jonathan changes his name to Jack. You're on your way to careening through this colourful vignette of New York's East Village indigent, aspiring musicians and other unsung artistes of a specific era—Clinton has just moved into the White House. They live for reviews. The Shits have an important gig coming up soon but one day Jonathan Jack wakes up to realize his bass guitar is missing, an essential component of the band. Also missing is his roommate cum band mate, Banished Earl: their magnetic, irreplaceable, crowd-winning front man. Earl's unlovely drug habit renders him senseless most of the time, deaf to interventions. Another worry is that their actually talented drummer Hera wants to quit, to explore other dimensions.

Jack needs to check Earl's favourite haunts to find him before he sells the bass to buy dope. The precious (to Jack) instrument has already been seen in the company of a bruiser called Mounce who indeed tried to sell it. Eventually Cutwolf, the fourth and final member of Shits, catches up with Jack to search over the next few days. All for naught, and Earl's father files a missing persons report. The two musicians also spot Mounce departing the murder scene of their friend Toad. Jack's naive notion of criminal justice bounces up against the greed and corruption of the real world; Detective Fielden offers no assurances on that score. The thug's despised employer happens to be a powerful orange-faced businessman with an artfully-swirled signature hairdo—representative of those who really control the city.

At times hilarious, without glossing over lifestyle risks, No One Left is a great treat for dialogue lovers. The first few pages may daze you but the teleportation works. Complete with contemporary vernacular and music lingo, some of the absurd band names are laugh-out-loud. Satire melds with the author's obvious affection for his characters who exhibit all the earnest passions of youngsters. Earl salvages the concert with the transcendental performance of his life. Lipsyte has a great gift for words!

One-liners

▪ We used to have, according to Sour Mash magazine, a "scabrous, intermittently witty, post-skronk propulsion not unlike early Anal Gnosis." (3)

▪ Anyway, it's painful to be a human sidecar to the Earl, who, even strung out on dope, unbathed, seems to fire the carnal furnaces of all who pass him on the avenue, though maybe in this neighbourhood his stench, his opiated nodding, only add to the sex magic. (25)

▪ If I were a more honest person I'd tell her the truth, that though I've moved on in some ways, it still hurts to be deserted, and that I'm also anxious about a number of specific concerns, such as the dissolution of my band, the pointless nature of life without it, my chronic penury, and, most acutely, the double disappearance of my bass and my roommate. (59)

▪ Toad Molotov had his flaws, but he cared about this world, yearned in bad song to make it better. (70)

▪ "I wouldn't be able to go looking for him," I say. "If he ... I couldn't do it again." (206)

Multi-liners

▪ Without the Earl, we are a raucous, semi-coherent noise band. With him, we edge up to the portal of depraved magnificence. (36)

▪ But tonight, Toad's death is a hard chop to the gut, to the kishkas, as Grandpa Abe might have put it. My legs shake. I want to puke. (70)

▪ "You one of Fielden's frat brothers or something? This another prank? 'Cause I'm ready to break balls." (107)

▪ I don't mention the buzz around our last seven-inch, which the zine Soul Lobotomy called "the most promising wedge of deconstructed neo-proto-art-scuzz since Gimp Mask Goethe's notorious debut." (115)

▪ How many times has the Earl stood here, jumpy, aching, nervous, a poem of blood pain dancing on his lips, the dope sickness a net dropped over his body, the dope a knife for slashing his way free? (154)

▪ "They say the apple never falls far from the tree, but you know what? I think your friend fell pretty fucking far from his daddy's date palm." (171)

Det. Fielden tells it like it is

"All you need to understand is that you are living in a goddamn amusement park that is pretty much safe if you stay within the perimeter, stick to your coffee shops, your bars, your clubs, even your cop spots. But do not fuck with the people who really belong here, whether they are slinging dope on the corner or closing real estate deals in office towers. Not to mention all the hardworking civilians just trying to get through the day. Do you understand? Just play out your artsy-fartsy dream until you get too old or too tired of being broke and mediocre and it's time for the next batch of fools to roll in. As for your buddy, I'm sure he was a nice kid once, but it sounds like he fell off the cliff. Happens. It's a shame." (162)