Those Who Knew

September 1, 2018
On an unnamed island, a decade after the fall of a brutal dictator, a woman suspects that a prominent senator she knows from her past--a progressive star, a media darling--is guilty of his own private violence."Precisely a week after the death of Maria P. was declared an accident," begins Novey's (Ways to Disappear, 2016) sophomore novel, "a woman reached into her tote bag and found a sweater inside that didn't belong to her." The woman is Lena, a 30-something college instructor. The sweater bears an eerie resemblance to a sweater she used to wear, back when she too was a student activist, just like Maria P. before she was "accidentally" run over by a bus. Lena, though, is convinced Maria P. was murdered: She was pushed, Lena believes, by a hotshot senator named Victor, light of the nation's Truth and Justice Party. Lena has some experience with this. She was once in the thrall of Victor, too. Meanwhile, in a bed elsewhere on the island, Victor has come up with a plan to ward off questions: Get married. And so he proposes to the well-connected woman beside him, who lovingly accepts. The first half of the book has the propulsion of a thriller, a whirlwind of characters and perspectives. There is Lena's friend Olga, a victim of the regime who now runs a books-and-marijuana shop. There is Freddy, Victor's gay playwright brother, who has his own suspicions. There is Oscar, a northern tourist bearing baked goods. And then, of course, there's Lena, haunted by Maria P. and the years she spent in silence. What follows is a tangled web of loss and regret and--perhaps--something like redemption. It's not a particularly subtle book--after the initial setup, it unfurls more or less how you'd expect it to--but Novey's writing is so singularly vibrant it hardly matters.Dreamy and jarring and exceedingly topical.

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September 10, 2018
Novey’s propulsive second novel (after Ways to Disappear) follows multiple perspectives of those affected and connected by Victor, a sometimes brutal yet widely beloved man in a position of political power. In an unnamed island nation in the early aughts, Maria P., a young woman who has been introducing the liberal young senator at his rallies, turns up dead. Lena, a professor in her 30s—who herself experienced firsthand the violence and unpredictability that simmer beneath the senator’s wide appeal when they were student radicals together—believes that Victor must be responsible for the woman’s death, and feels compelled to compensate for the decade she has spent in silence about him. While Lena obsesses over her allegation, a wide cast of quirky characters—most notably Freddy, the senator’s gay brother; Olga, a radical former exile and stoner; and Christina, Victor’s politically convenient wife—and their own perspectives help fill in the senator’s other crimes and shortcomings, as well as the circumstances of a changing nation in a changing world. Novey’s storytelling is taut and her diction sharp, and though there are some unnecessary structural turns (scenes from a play Freddy is writing about his brother, newspaper reports), the book nevertheless has a striking sense of momentum. Add in a slight and intriguing sense of the supernatural, and the result is a provocative novel that has the feel of a thriller.

October 15, 2018
As an unnamed island nation seeks to recover from its repressive dictatorship, known as the Terrible Years, up-and-coming politician Victor is rising in prominence, in part for advocating free college tuition. Lena, a college professor from one of the island's wealthiest families, supports Victor on this issue but has a history with him and knows his dark side. When Maria P., a young aide to Victor, is hit by a bus and killed, Lena suspects that Victor had a hand in her death. But she says nothing until her closest friend, Olga, a survivor of the Terrible Years and proprietor of the Seek the Sublime or Die bookshop, where she also sells weed, asks for Lena's help in finding the killer. Novey (Ways to Disappear?, 2016) creates a landscape in which her characters may represent, or sometimes hide, their nation, class, or station in life. Yet her women overcome such barriers and join together, revealing what they know in order to effect change. With its unnamed locales and spare prose, the novel becomes a modern parable that allows readers to unearth deeper meanings.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

October 15, 2018

The personal is political in this new novel from Novey (Ways To Disappear), which takes place on an unnamed island popular with volunteer tourists from the United States. Activist Lena discovers a sweater in her handbag that belongs to a dead, possibly murdered, student activist named Maria P. Does the sweater really belong to Maria? Did Lena's ex-boyfriend, popular and populist politician Victor, murder her? Victor is on the cusp of a politically advantageous marriage, and he has a history of violence that Lena experienced firsthand when they were students. But unlike Maria, Lena came from money. Her family had ties to the oligarchy that ran the island during her revolutionary days, and she survived. Lena wants justice for Maria but is haunted by her instead. While Lena is the primary focus of this novel, the perspective shifts among the characters throughout. By concentrating on the interconnected and very personal stories of each, Novey negotiates the surreal reality of an aging port city that is both victim and beneficiary of globalization. VERDICT Highly recommended for readers of literary fiction and those who enjoy stories set in Latin America. [See Prepub Alert, 5/14/18.]--Pamela Mann, St. Mary's Coll. Lib., MD

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2018

In an unnamed island country, Lena is concerned that a powerful senator in her past is exploiting a younger woman--who then ends up dead. Now what should Lena do? A follow-up to Novey's bold debut, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist Ways To Disappear.

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.