Martha
I think marketing this as a murder mystery or crime novel does it a disservice by setting expectations that aren't true to the focus of the story. It's much more about societal expectations of gender, relationships to food and family, and a very intimate, sometime slow, description of women finding a life that brings them happiness.
I could not stop listening. Content has about every trigger warning and I definitely wouldn't be able to listen to this at other points in my life. I was really compelled by the story, the writing and the voice actors. I cant put a finger on where I stand in the tension (contradiction?) of the author wanting to focus the story on the victims and survivors, not the defendant, but in doing so in a fictional way and using fictional names contributing to the exact problem? Or is it enough that, because this was 50 years ago and it's not possible to tell those victims' stories, that this is positive enough?
Started out reading paperback and switched to audio for logistical reasons. Some of narrator's voices really annoyed me - two of the women were unnecessarily winy and ditsy and Benny's voice was a miss for me too. And while this is a long novel and some parts could feel too extended, overall I found those to fit the experience of reading this so well. The level of detail brought me into the story, into their home. I neither loved nor hated the narrative structure, more appreciated it as different and interesting.
So many thoughts about this book. 400 pages was too long and almost stopped reading halfway bc I get the approach of capturing the acid head vibes but it just wasn't fun to read (sober) for sooo many pages. Feel like I need to go read more about the pranksters in a historical context to accompany a book that came out in the moment. While these aren't the choices I'd make, it's super interesting to understand people so hyper focused on community and living outside established expectations.
And where is anything more on Faye??
