Book Review by Robert Wiersema I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai Bodie Kane’s experience of high school was pretty miserable. A private-scholarship student at Granby – a New Hampshire boarding school – in the mid1990s, Kane was a bit of a geek (think AV club) and a loner (think thrift store goth, surrounded by the wealth of private school), shunned by most of her fellow students and reeling from the death of her father and brother and the disintegration of her family. In an adolescence characterized by private sorrow and isolation, perhaps the most lingering tragedy was also the most public: her former roommate, Thalia Keith, was murdered in the spring of their final year. The school’s trainer was tried and convicted of her death. It’s no wonder that Kane prefers to forget her past. But not everyone wants to forget it. Thalia’s murder has inspired numerous conspiracy theories online, with amateur detectives offering solutions to the case; most people in those forums believe that the trainer was innocent, with his trial and conviction having racial overtones. Kane doesn’t want to get involved in any of that, either. As Rebecca Makkai’s stunning new novel I Have Some Questions for You opens, however, Kane finds herself going back to her former school. A now successful film professor and podcaster, Kane has been invited back to teach a couple of intercession courses, including one on podcasting. Some of her students, familiar with the 20-year-old murder and the questions which still seem to circulate around it, decide to investigate the crime as their podcast project. Although she doesn’t confide in her students, Kane has questions of her own, including whether an innocent man was sent to prison (due in part to her testimony) and whether she knows the identity of the murderer. Kane is a well-drawn and realistic character, caught in the tension of wanting to understand her own past while, at the same time, wanting to hide from the truths that such an understanding might reveal. Makkai vividly captures the campus community and what it was like to be at Granby as a student (in contrast with how it is to have returned as an adult), and the ways in which places can linger within you, haunting you with their presence (or absence). With I Have Some Questions for You, Makkai – who was awarded The Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction for her previous novel The Great Believers (which was also shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award) – has written a powerful mystery novel for the true crime age, interweaving elements of podcast journalism (the breathy narration and the interviews with people only peripherally involved in the crime, for example) with staples of mystery fiction (including partial memories, discovered documents and the like). The result is an utterly transfixing reading experience, which incorporates wrongful conviction, racism, teenage rebellion, the effects of the #MeToo movement, class conflict, growing up, and the mental and psychological processes of growing older. It’s a stunning novel, probably one of the best you’ll read this year. CSANews | SUMMER 2023 | 39
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