Old Crimes by Jill McCorkle

Published by Algonquin Books on January 9, 2024

Most of the stories in Old Crimes feature women who have reached or lived beyond middle age. An exception is “Filling Station,” a story about a man in his sixties who rents a room in a house where his grandparents used to live, a house that has been converted into a gas station. The room is an excuse to stay away from his wife, as is the time he devotes to a dying high school teacher he regards as a mentor. The other exception follows “a lineman for the county” who prides himself on his competence (he’ll survive the coming apocalypse because he is good with tools and knows how things work) but regrets his failure to make his relationships work.

“Low Tones” is the story of a woman who isn’t prepared to be old. She can no longer hear low frequencies, a convenient excuse for developing a case of selective hearing. She regrets the moments in her life when she wasn’t the person she wanted to be. Her husband has “a bad illness that leaves him making hand signals” and she doesn’t know if she can cope with him. Cancer has reached his brain and makes him say awful things to her, although he’s always been abusive. She’s annoyed by the young people she sees making out in a truck and feels empathy for an unrepentant woman who murdered her husband. I think the point of the story is that life doesn’t always turn out as one hopes, and never will if we don’t take control of it while we still can.

My favorite in this collection is “Commandments.” Three women meet regularly to gripe about the man who dated and dumped them all. They all aspired to be pampered for the rest of their lives by a rich man but none of them succeeded. This seems less than tragic, given that they all appear to have achieved pampering by less wealthy but comfortably affluent men. Each woman has been in therapy but they disregard their therapists’ advice to move on with their lives and devote their meetings to “beating that decayed horse down to its bare bones.” The story works because the waitress who brings their lunch is more interesting than the three women. She doesn’t seem to envy their designer clothes and purses. She knows the man they hate, recognizes him as an asshole, and governs herself accordingly. The waitress — “a living Bible of truth and common sense” — teaches a good lesson about karma and wisdom that surpasses anything the women have heard from their therapists.

The protagonist in “Swinger” is “the kind of invisible woman who might be referred to as sturdy or dependable, smart and practical.” She was living with a married man, waiting for him to get divorced, for three years before he died. The man had Polaroids of naked women that he kept in a shoe box, photos of his conquests, but never took one of her and now never will. An encounter with a burglar at the novel’s end gives the story a heartening twist.

A woman who got a divorce, relocated with the kids, found a new job, and dealt with the death of her father and decline of her mother never had time to have the breakdown she deserved. In “Sparrow,” memories of the past (including an old story about a boy’s disappearance that still haunts the town to which the woman moves) interweave with experiences in the present (including speculative whispers about the death of a young mother and her son). The story ends with a suspected child snatching. The point of the story seems to be that people want to keep themselves and their children safe but have no idea how to do it.

The other stories in the book are well crafted but I found them to be of less interest. A woman realizes that “evil and violent things” have always happened and always will. The purchase of an old confessional prompts characters to speak of their relatively inconsequential sins. A retired school librarian tries to teach biblical values to Bible-belters who don’t want to feed or educate children. A family gathering causes a drama teacher to see life as a play that is well into its third act. These and other stories are devoted to insightful character building, but they generally seemed longer than necessary, given how little the characters do after they are built. Still, the best stories in the collection make the book worth reading.

RECOMMENDED

Happy New Year!

Rabbit Hole by Kate Brody

Published by Soho Crime on January 2, 2024

The value of Rabbit Hole derives from its focus on the public’s obsessive interest in true crime (or possible crime), particularly when a pretty white girl goes missing. Speculative theories are presented as absolute fact by people who substitute their invented realities for objective truth.

Angie Angstrom disappeared shortly before she was to start classes at a community college. Angie’s half-sister, Theodora (Teddy) Angstrom, is two years younger than Angie. Teddy and Angie have the same mother, Clare Angstrom. Teddy's father is Mark Angstrom. Angie's father was Mark's brother. Clare married Mark after his brother died.

Angie attended a party on the evening of her disappearance. She told people she was getting a ride from her boyfriend. Whether Angie actually had a boyfriend and the possible boyfriend’s identity are part of the mystery. Teddy saw Angie when she briefly returned home after the party. Teddy is the last person known to have seen Angie, although she was slow to admit that fact to her parents and the police.

A subreddit is devoted to Angie’s disappearance, giving fools the opportunity to assign blame. That seems to be a favorite American pastime. Many people who comment on internet forums think Mark is creepy because he married his brother’s widow. Since they regard him as creepy, they assume he killed Angie or did something that drove her into hiding. Why anyone would think Mark’s choice of marital partners is a reason to judge him, much less evidence of murder, is a mystery equal to Angie’s disappearance.

As Rabbit Hole begins, Mark has just committed suicide by driving off a bridge on the tenth anniversary of Angie’s disappearance. He had a substance abuse problem that predated Angie’s fate.

Teddy’s father was conducting his own investigation into Angie’s disappearance. As Teddy goes through his papers, she finds some notes that apparently relate to investigative leads. One is the phone number of a landscaper who Angie thought was hot (so did Teddy, although she wouldn’t admit it to Angie). A text on Mark’s phone leads Teddy to her brother’s ex-wife. Blurry photographs might or might not prove that Angie is still alive. Examining Angie’s old social media accounts (who knew that MySpace still exists?) provides more clues but no definitive answers.

Mark was in touch with Mickey Greeley, a woman who, as an apparent hobby, investigated Angie’s disappearance. Whether Mickey resembles Angie at the age of her disappearance seems to be a matter of opinion. Maybe Mark hung out with Mickey because of that resemblance. Maybe Mark was sleeping with Mickey. Angie can’t be sure, although Angie and Mickey become attached in a clingy way that might have been similar to Mickey’s relationship with Mark.

The story is told in the third person from Teddy’s perspective. Teddy is a high school teacher. She has an empty apartment but she spends most of her time with her mother, with whom she has a strained relationship. Teddy has no boyfriend. A shrink told her that Angie’s disappearance has made her fear happy endings. She has taken herself off the dating apps again, although she knows she will return when she wants sex or a good restaurant meal.

Kate Brody does an impressive job of planting real and misleading clues to keep multiple mysteries in play throughout the novel. What happened to Angie? Which supporting characters are disguising their true stories? Did any of them play a role in Angie’s disappearance and, if so, why are they making themselves part of Teddy’s life?

Teddy is such a mess that she’s almost a sympathetic character, if only because she loves and is caring for Angie’s old and dying dog. She’s also maddening in ways that make it difficult to sustain sympathy. Teddy makes bad decisions. When she’s doxxed on Reddit, she buys a gun, starts carrying it with her, forgets she has it and brings it to school. The choices she makes about sex partners range from questionable to awful and become more dangerous (at least psychologically) as the novel nears its end.

I give high marks to the subreddit transcripts, which perfectly capture the idiocy of Reddit discussions. I also appreciated Teddy’s questions about her father when she begins to suspect he might have been a bad guy. Should she stop loving and missing him if her suspicions prove to be true? Does the part of him she loved just disappear if she learns that another part of him was creepy?

A good many readers are uncomfortable with ambiguous endings. They want all their questions answered. But like many “true crimes” that are discussed on blogs, internet forums, and bad television shows, the truth isn’t always knowable. The information Teddy acquires points to a plausible explanation of Angie’s disappearance, but definitive answers are elusive. The novel’s purpose is not to solve the mystery but to explore the impact of “true crime” speculation upon a family that has no answers. In some respects, that makes Rabbit Hole a more interesting novel than it might have been if the mystery had been neatly resolved, although I recognize that readers who demand certainty will be frustrated with the way the story ends.

RECOMMENDED

This Plague of Souls by Mike McCormack

First published in Great Britain in 2023; published by ‎ Soho Press on January 2, 2024

John Nealon grew up with an understanding that farming “was a glutinous realm, throbbing with pain across cycles of death and renewal that were tinted with green shit and blood-veined mucus.” When his father died, Nealon sold the cattle and rented out the farmland, keeping the house as his residence when he’s not traveling. Nealon studied art, demonstrated serious potential, and squandered his talent by devoting his days to alcohol and weed.

In the east of Ireland, Nealon met Olewyn. He either rescued or kidnapped her as she was riding a heroin high. He brought her back to his village in the west of Ireland. They married and Olweyn became pregnant. Nealon built a studio, furnished it with paints and canvasses, then watched his dreams die. “In the neatness and order of his new studio, Nealon recognized not a new beginning but an end, a memorial to everything he had already done and a lament to all those things his imagination now refused to reach for.” He spent the following years working as a carpenter.

Then Nealon was arrested and remanded to prison to await trial. After a ten-month detention in prison, Nealon’s trial was “set at naught by bad grammar and poor spelling.” The prosecution’s case collapsed and Nealon returned home to find an empty house. Nealon’s backstory is revealed in “separate strands and lurching incidents” as Nealon contemplates his life and lonely home.

As the novel begins, Nealon has no idea where his wife and child have gone. Instead of being greeted by his family, he is greeted by his ringing phone. A series of conversations with a stranger follow. The stranger seems to know everything about Nealon, including the precise moment Nealon enters his home and the location of his electrical main. The stranger wants to meet. The stranger hints that he knows the location of Nealon’s wife and child, so Nealon agrees to meet him.

Nealon conducts a paranoid search of his body and clothing for a transmitter, without result. How does the stranger seem to know his every move? An undefined threat, perhaps related to terrorism, has Ireland on high alert. Soldiers patrol the streets and set up checkpoints on local roads. Is the stranger related to the national threat? Nealon worries about his wife and son in this frightening historical moment. But perhaps it is not the moment that frightens them. Perhaps Nealon is the threat. Nealon comes to understand that they “should not be within psychic distance of him for fear the black radiance of his accumulated circumstances may shrivel and waste them.”

The story comes together during Nealon’s meeting with the stranger. Small observational details that seemed unimportant to the narrative suddenly gain new meaning. It takes some time to learn what Nealon might or might not have done that prompts the meeting. Nealon is accused of extraordinary crimes, improbably committed for altruistic purposes. Could the accusations be true? Is the terrorist threat a real thing? Mike McCormack leaves the reader with the stranger’s opinions but no clear answers.

At the meeting’s conclusion, Nealon has an epiphany. McCormack does not spell out Nealon’s conclusions or the reasoning that brings Nealon to a new understanding of his life. The stranger gives Nealon a choice, but the choice and its consequences are just as unclear as the stranger’s identity. Perhaps the choice involves a return to, or renunciation of, the past. Readers who like to discuss ambiguous literature will find enough material in This Plague of Souls to fuel a lengthy debate.

Despite (or because of) its puzzling and frustrating plot, This Plague of Souls is a joy to read, if only for the sharpness of McCormack’s prose and the depth of Nealon’s isolated existence. Perhaps a second reading would help my comprehension of the novel’s ending and the point that McCormack wanted to make. I will leave it to more scholarly minds to undertake that analysis. I’m happy to have experienced the story and its telling.

RECOMMENDED

Merry Christmas!