Fiction / Literary / Crime
Originally published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004.
Reviewed by Sarah, 06/16/15
When you think about stories that capture the persona of a murderer or a sexual offender, you typically think of thrillers. That’s not this book. Page’s character, Simon, is in prison for killing his girlfriend. We know this immediately. The book is not so much about that event as it is about the aftermath. We are looking at the rehabilitation process, the prison system in England, and the humanity of an individual at once flawed and sympathetic. Don’t get me wrong, Page doesn’t glorify Simon. She wants you to see him as potentially dangerous and unstable, but she wants you to understand him at the same time. That is, we have the opportunity as readers to imagine how a person can commit such a crime without being “crazy” or “evil.” At the same time, we are invited to imagine what this must have been like for his girlfriend, another character presented as a whole human being, not just a victim.
The book is filled with thought-provoking material in terms of psychology, penal system rehabilitation programs, ideas about sex and sexuality, etc. In fact, the book also features a transgender woman. This is an interesting piece of the plot and provides another great example of realistic portrayal. In fiction, the LGBTQ characters are often relegated to stock characters or featured solely as a part of erotica. As we celebrate Pride Month, I’m thrilled to note that Page has included a character that is none of these things. Page’s character is a part of a larger narrative and feels important to the action of the book, not just propped in as a token.
I appreciate this book and believe that Page is tremendously talented. This is a fascinating read.
Carson’s Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse, first published in 1998, scooped me up during a poetry class at WMU several years ago. (If you are unfamiliar with the genre: a verse novel combines narrative, poetry, and drama. Similar to a lyrical essay, but fiction rather than non-fiction). 
Could a human, left behind on Mars, make it until rescue arrives? This is not so much a retelling of Robinson Crusoe as it is “MacGyver in Space”… with a little Big Bang Theory thrown in.
This is not one of Vonnegut’s best known titles, but it deserves just as much attention as Slaughterhouse Five, Cat’s Cradle, and any of the others. If you like stories about well-meaning people who do terrible things out of ignorance, this is it! What do I mean by terrible things? Try the boy narrator who fires a gun out his folk’s upstairs window as a celebration of his burgeoning manhood only to find that he just accidentally killed the pregnant neighbor lady, nailing her right between the eyes. Now he’s forever known to his community as “Deadeye Dick.” If this makes you laugh rather than cry, you’re a Vonnegut reader. The dark comedy of this novel is offset at times by a surprising warmth and gentleness regarding humanity. It’s as though Vonnegut is assessing all of our human fallibility and laughing with us at its absurdity. Essentially, this is some of the best fiction I’ve read and I’m a pretty persnickety reader.
