CULTURE CLUB
CAMBRIDGE EDITION Book Club From a murder mystery to a retelling of Greek myth, meet our top literary picks for March
WORDS BY CHARLOTTE GRIFFITHS
I Have Some Questions For You
BY REBECCA MAKKAI
Star podcaster and professor Bodie Kane is returning to her alma mater Granby, an exclusive New Hampshire boarding school, to instruct the next generation in journalism and podcasting. Her return to the school is a mixed bag of emotions: she has deftly avoided all the big reunions so far, only venturing back on campus to keep in touch with her childhood friend Fran, who also attended Granby and now lives and works at the school. Waves of nostalgia crash over Bodie, but it’s not just memories of her traumatic pre-Granby adolescence that are causing discomfort. The return forces her to confront a tragedy that hangs over the whole school – the violent murder of Bodie’s roommate, Thalia Keith, in their senior year, which rocked the nation and is now the subject of mass speculation concerning the convicted man’s guilt. Every shred of evidence from 1995 is being re-examined online and hotly debated by amateur sleuths, and people are starting to question the verdict that saw a young Black man jailed for Thalia’s murder. As part of her course, Bodie has asked her students to make a short podcast on a specific topic. When a student suggests re-investigating Thalia’s murder, Bodie realises with a jolt that finding out what happened might be the real reason she accepted
the job. But it quickly becomes apparent that we are not alone in Bodie’s head. There is someone else in the audience with us, directing her narrative to a member of faculty that taught her in her teenage years. “I didn’t understand yet that I was there on your trail, that I wanted answers from you,” she remarks. “But the subconscious has a funny way of working things out.” I Have Some Questions For You is immersive and irresistible from the get- go. The central mystery is compelling on its own, but the book also offers up a hypnotic and provocative mix of dark academia, true crime, podcasting, the #MeToo movement and third-wave feminism that make it hard to put down.
Immersive and irresistible from the get-go... impossible to put down
INQUISITION Rebecca Makkai, acclaimed American writer and author of The Great Believers, has written a brilliant contemporary murder mystery
CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK MARCH 2023 27
Powered by FlippingBook