Cartwheel

DuBois's second book is a fascinating novel based loosely on the case of Amanda Knox, the American college student who was convicted of murdering her roommate while studying abroad in Italy. Narrator Emily Rankin's delivery emphasizes the empathy and ambiguity of DuBois's characters. Lily Hayes has been arrested for the brutal murder of her roommate, Katy, but is she capable of such an act? The answer depends on which character you ask as DuBois and Rankin allow each of them to share his or her own perspective. In doing so, Rankin fades into the background to foreground the characters over the story's narration. With the combined skill of DuBois and Rankin, this long novel flies by as the listener attempts to figure out just who Lily is and what she may have done. J.L.K. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine

July 8, 2013
Taking themes that were “loosely inspired by the story of Amanda Knox,” Cartwheel follows American exchange student Lily Hayes, who has been accused of murdering her roommate, Katy Kellers, in Argentina. Like Knox, Lily’s troublesome lack of anguish, as reportedly evidenced by canoodling with her boyfriend the day after the murder, causes an uproar in the media. Like Knox, Lily seems to have been completely normal—so normal, in fact, that her disbelief at her predicament leads to some bad choices. While duBois (A Partial History of Lost Causes) clearly has the authorial chops to illustrate complex characters, Cartwheel remains flat partly because she seems more focused on avoiding right answers or easy sympathy than creating characters who are more than moral specimens. While muddying the waters of right and wrong is almost always a valiant cause in literature, this novel reads more like an intellectual exercise in examining all the different angles rather than an emotional engagement with human beings. Agent: Henry Dunow, Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.