"Bestselling novelist Octavia Frost has just completed her latest book—a revolutionary novel in which she has rewritten the last chapters of all her previous books, removing clues about her personal life concealed within, especially a horrific tragedy that befell her family years ago.
On her way to deliver the manuscript to her editor, Octavia reads a news crawl in Times Square and learns that her rock-star son, Milo, has been arrested for murder. Though she and Milo haven’t spoken in years—an estrangement stemming from that tragic day—she drops everything to go to him.
The “last chapters” of Octavia’s novel are layered throughout The Nobodies Album—the scattered puzzle pieces to her and Milo’s dark and troubled past. Did she drive her son to murder? Did Milo murder anyone at all? And what exactly happened all those years ago? As the novel builds to a stunning reveal, Octavia must consider how this story will come to a close.
Universally praised for her candid explorations of the human psyche, Parkhurst delivers an emotionally gripping and resonant mystery about a mother and her son, and about the possibility that one can never truly know another person."
I won an Advanced Reader's Copy of this book from the Goodreads First Reads program; I read it a couple months ago but I'm just now getting around to reviewing it. That means, of course, that it's now on the shelves, so you won't have to wait to pick up a copy for yourself if you are so inclined.
Parkhurst's first novel, The Dogs of Babel, is one of my very favorites; I love the story of Tam Lin, and despite the grief and the animal cruelty that drive the novel, I think it is a fantastic mixture of content and characterization. I was pleased to find that Parkhurst uses another interesting approach to a standard murder mystery in this novel. The main story is pretty straightforward in terms of narration and sequencing of events, told from Octavia's point of view. Interspersed with these chapters are the last chapters of all of Octavia's novels, which have been rewritten, along with a plot summary of each -- these revisions are part of a new "novel" she has pitched to her editor. The catch, of course, is that these final chapters each contain a lot of information that reveals her own thoughts about a tragedy that occurred earlier in her own life and which affects both her and her estranged son.
It's pretty evident all along as to what is happening, but I think that is intentional; it's another way for Parkhurst to reveal more information about the relationship that Octavia and Milo have (or don't have, depending on how you look at it). In terms of characterization, I think Octavia is a bit of a pushover -- she's just a very dishwater-bland type of character, but again, I think that's necessary. Writing her as a more forceful character would have changed the whole tone of the novel and it just wouldn't have worked. I found Milo much less believable as a character, because it really seemed as though he was a 30 year old man who continuously acted like a 7 year old.
Other than the ending feeling a bit rushed and wrapping up too neatly, I think this was a good book. Not a great book, but a good read nonetheless.
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