I have had my eye on this one for a while. It has been staring at me from the English Language shelves in my favorite Tallinn bookstore, and the best bookstore in the world, Rahva Raamat for quite some time. Two things tipped me over the threshold to go ahead and buy…1. It was on sale after Christmas and 2. It was blurbed by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, one of my favorite modern writers.
Based on Sweeney’s blurb and my own reading, I would put this squarely in the literary thriller genre. (Yes, that’s a thing. See I Have Some Questions for You and Notes on an Execution,)
Here’s the set up: a bunch of moody college students in a small (tiny!) arts school north of Chicago (unclear if it is in the US or Canada) are specializing in acting Shakespeare. They have spent the last three years immersed in Shakespeare, and the program is small, incestuous, and elite.
When the novel opens, our main character, Oliver, is about to get out of prison, and the police inspector visits him to ask whether he can get the real story once Oliver is released. Then we go backwards to see the reason Oliver is in prison unfold.
The structure is slightly experimental—written in five acts with a LOAD of Shakespeare quotations, and a prologue with the inspector in the present at the beginning of each act before we plunge back into the story of what happened.
I don’t want to spoil it for you, so that is all I will say about the plot.
This novel is beautifully written and demands the reader to give it some time and attention—not an easy read, but it is worth the time you will spend. If you are looking for an example of a fabulous first page, take a look at this one. It is chock full of sentences that make the reader curious to read the rest. The structure helps keep things on track and the Shakespeare references, though a bit much at times, actually do move the plot. It is a world in a bubble where “something wicked this way comes.” (Sorry not sorry, couldn’t resist…
Enjoy!
