I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai

“The hell of imprisonment isn’t the terrible food, it’s the lack of choice of food. It isn’t the cold, wet floor, it’s that you can’t choose another place to stand. It isn’t the confinement so much as the fact of never running, never getting in your car and speeding off, as Omar loved to do.”

Bodie Kane is a successful film professor and podcaster living in California with her family. Her traumatic childhood in the mid-West led to an elite boarding school education in New Hampshire paid for by a hometown sponsor. Bodie’s four years at Granby had highs and lows until a classmate, Thalia, was found dead in the pool during their senior year. The school’s athletic trainer, Omar, was charged and convicted in her death, but much has been debated online since then.

Twenty-three years later, Bodie comes back to Granby as a guest teacher for a two-week class on podcasting. When a student selects researching Thalia’s death and Omar’s conviction, Bodie knows she can no longer avoid asking questions she has long buried. Did Granby and the police rush to convict without thoroughly looking at other suspects? Has Omar been wrongfully imprisoned for twenty-three years?

I had so many jumbled thoughts and feelings about this book when I closed it for the last time, but I think that was a sign of just how intricately it is written and the weight of the topics it covers. This book touches so many issues including racial discrimination, economic discrimination, the criminal justice system, sexual and physical violence, cancel culture, and society’s fascination with female murder victims. The book is written as if Bodie is addressing the music teacher at Granby when she attended the school (it takes about 40 pages to figure out who “you” is, so if that is a spoiler for you – apologies! – I would have preferred to understand the “you” from the start). This was not a quick read, but it’s one that is going to keep me thinking for a long time. If you are interested in suspense novels that take their time exploring characters and social issues, I highly recommend this latest from Pulitzer Prize finalist Rebecca Makkai.

Check out I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai for yourself from the Library (https://catalog.lclibs.org/polaris/search/title.aspx…) or through the eLibrary at https://lclibs.overdrive.com/media/8988410 or your Libby app.