In Rebecca Makkai’s engrossing novel I Have Some Questions for You, a profitable podcaster and movie critic takes a job at a New Hampshire boarding college the place, 23 years in the past, a white feminine scholar named Thalia Keith was murdered. The college’s athletic coach, a Black man named Omar Evans, was convicted of the crime and has been imprisoned for a long time.
Bodie Kane sees the invitation to show a course on podcasting on the Granby School as a possibility to present again to her alma mater. It’s additionally an opportunity to research the homicide of Thalia, who was Bodie’s classmate; along with her curiosity in true crime, Bodie has had tons of time to consider how poorly the case was initially dealt with. Bodie suggests to her class that revisiting the case would make a very good podcast, and two of the scholars start what evolves right into a groundbreaking inquiry. Meanwhile, a serious #MeToo scandal involving Bodie’s ex-husband, a well known visible artist, threatens her status, veracity and livelihood.
Back at Granby and surrounded by the acquainted panorama, school rooms and even some of the outdated school, Bodie is overwhelmed by recollections of her trauma-filled childhood and wonders how these experiences may need formed her highschool years. She additionally begins to query her impressions of the varsity’s music instructor, Denny Bloch, whom she thinks could have been concerned in a sexual relationship with Thalia. Bodie can not assist however subtly form the scholars’ investigation, and the extra time she spends on the college, the extra she questions the motives of her classmates, her professors and even herself.
Makkai locations the fictional homicide of Thalia Keith and imprisonment of Omar Evans within the wider context of violence towards ladies and institutional racism. If the guide has any faults, it’s that we by no means hear from Omar himself, and his experiences solely come to Bodie second-hand. But I Have Some Questions for You is Bodie’s story, a well-plotted indictment of systemic racism and misogyny craftily disguised as a thriller and superbly constructed to make its factors.
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