I remember what I remember remembering.
p316

Set in the present day where the #metoo campaign is front and centre and frequent media discussions around violence agaist women take place, Makkai takes on a murder of a girl in a boarding school and explores the issues it raises years later.

The story is tod by Bodie, an ex-pupil of the school and room-mate of Thalia who was murdered. One night at the end of a school performance she doesn't attend the party in the woods and eventually, her body is found and Omar, a coach at the school, is charged, tried and found guilty. But there have always been questions about whether Omar is guilty and Bodie, who is now an acclaimed podcaster, manipulates students into trying to find a different solution to the case.

There is so much going on in this story but what Makkai does very well is show that transition from child to young adult well: the humiliations, the pairing off, being left on the outside and then years later discovering that everyone felt this way. A significant proportion of the book is about memory, what we remember and how we remember it alongside the power of group think. This was a group of students who put two and two together and made five or more. It focused on how gossip became fact with no one questioning what was being said or assumed. It also highlighted how useless the police can be and how misdirected they are when they make assumptions.

What I didn't understand fully was the role of the sub-plot where Bodie's husband, Jerome, was accused by a younger woman of of abusing her. She was old enough and agreed that the sex was consensual but felt that the power balance was all in Jerome's favour and that he took advantage of the situation. The artist made a video work of art talking about the relationship and her feelings now which trended online. Twitter in all of this mayhem was completely involved. The accusations doesn't seem to go anywhere and is not integral to the story.

The book raised issues about the nature of true crime and the use of citizen detectives and the value of podcasting which ended up being a force for good.

A powerful story which was a bit slow in parts. ( )

Finished the newest Rachel Makkai book called I Have Some Questions for You.
I've read and enjoyed two other books by RM, one a charming YA novel about it a librarian and her favorite student, the other an accomplished narrative of historical fiction depicting the years of the AIDS crisis in America. It appears she has taken in a new genre with this somewhat classic Donna Tart- like boarding school whodunit.
The story is narrated by Bodie Kane who return to Grady, a boarding school for wealthy, intelligent kids. Bodie is returning to teach a winter session course on podcasting and film history. To those who knew her as the intimidating goth like 15 year old, her current notoriety is a bit surprising. "The need to keep busy is both a symptom of high-functioning anxiety and the key to my success. My podcast at the time was Starlet Fever, a serial history of women in film—the ways the industry chewed them up and spat them out."
Returning to the campus also has her returning to the biggest event in her life, the murder of her roommate Thalia Keith and the rushed prosecution of the black athletic trainer, Omar Evans. Makkai interjects his experiences in prison as well, including a near fatal stabbing.
One of the highlights of the writing style is her choice to have her narrator write this account to her former drama teacher who she believes is the real killer. At times she also dedicates sections to several others who may have been responsible, including Thalia's boyfriend Robbie, her catty girlfriends who were jealous of her, and even the narrator herself.
The story is definitely propelling and leads to a satisfying conclusion with plenty of commentary about the state of the world prior to the Me-Too movement. I enjoyed the novel and will continue look forward to her work.

Lines
One photo—her laughing with her mouth but not her eyes, suggesting some deep unhappiness—tends to feature in clickbait.

Yahav was skittish and unpredictable, a handsome Israeli bunny rabbit, equally likely to drive straight here as to vanish into the woods forever.

Then, out of nowhere, came Thalia Keith. (Theme music! Follow spot! All heads turn.) Black curls down her back, clear olive skin, eyes people reverently described as aqua. Flat-chested, which helped explain why rather than killing her on sight, a high-status group of junior girls instantly adopted her.

The dosage of my antidepressant is such that I haven’t cried actual tears in a decade, but there are times when I want so badly to cry that I make all the noises of crying, press my fists into my eyes so I feel something similar.

The actual statistic, if you care, is that worldwide, 38.6 percent of murdered women are killed by intimate partners. In some countries that’s much higher.

In Anne’s car, NPR was still going. It was the one where they found green synthetic fibers between her teeth. It was the one where her shoes were gone. The one where her bike was gone. The one where her fingernails were gone, broken in the fight. ( )

This feels like a long book, a long haul which I only intermittently enjoyed. Bodie Kane, film professor and podcaster returns to the privileged boarding school where she was a scholarship pupil. She finds herself, together with a couple of the pupils in her group returning to investigate the death of her former room mate which occurred when she was a student there. The three of them are sure the wrong man was incarcerated for the crime, and Bodie has her own ideas. There's a long cast list here which I found hard to keep track of. Though there's plenty to make you think here - about power, about class, about sex and violence and about letting sleeping dogs lie - the whole book felt longer than it needed to be. Oddly, what I mainly got from this book was some idea of the American boarding school system: though as my understanding of its English equivalent is shaky, to say the least, I'm not sure how relevant this is to me. ( )

There is a lot to think about after reading this book. I can clearly see what the author is trying to do... she wants us to contemplate all the news stories about the abuse and murder of women, which has become so common that we are almost immune to the horror. She does this by repeating anonymous stories as a litany...
"That was her flip-flop beside the van. That was her comb in the ravine. That was her bank card at the ATM in Kansas, but that wasn't heron the security footage....That was her phone, tossed off the overpass. That was her blood in the bathroom. That was her hair in the attic. We're lucky to find this much. That was her laundry, still in the dryer. This was her body, but she's long gone." (p. 431)

Bodie is trying to solve the murder of her high school roommate, because she believes that the man serving time for the murder was wrongfully convicted. She returns to her high school and get her podcast students interested in the case. The book is written as a stream of consciousness letter to her one-time hero (or crush?), her music teacher Mr. Bloch.

Unfortunately, Bodie is written as a feminist #Metoo/Social Justice Warrior, but comes off as an unhappy, manipulative middle-aged woman who cannot get over being an outsider during her high school years. As she struggles to gain adult perspective, her whiny pining over the once hot high school dudes, her longing for acceptance by the in-crowd can sometimes be a little sad and pathetic.

"When someone asks me if I liked boarding school, I can no longer base my answer, by judgement, on the people I knew. Once, I might have thought of you. I might have thought of any number of people who weren't what I once believed. But I can still love the place itself... this was a place where someone could claim a small corner, a place where, by the end of four years, I'd be able to say I was part of something. Somewhere on campus, I'd find a place to leave a piece of myself. I was here. I was here." p. 422

5 stars for the plot
2 stars for the main character
3 stars total ( )

A mystery that becomes a meditation on men's assaults on women. I loved it! ( )