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A Novel
by T Kira Madden
Book Reviewed by:A stunning literary achievement and portrait of three women connected through one man in the aftermath of his murder—the explosive and highly anticipated debut novel from beloved and award-winning memoirist, T Kira Madden.
Birdie Chang didn't know anything about Whidbey Island when she chose it, only that it was about as far away as she could get from her own life. She's a woman on the run, desperate for an escape from the headlines back home and the look of concern in her girlfriend's eyes—and from Calvin Boyer, the man who abused her as a child and who's now resurfaced. On her way, she has an unnerving encounter with a stranger on the ferry who offers her a proposition, a sinister solution, a plan for revenge.
But Birdie isn't the only girl Calvin harmed back then. There's also Linzie King, a former reality TV star who recently wrote all about it in her bestselling memoir. Though the two women have never met, their stories intertwine. Once Birdie arrives on Whidbey, she finally cracks the book's spine, only to find too much she recognizes in its pages. Soon after, on the other side of the country, Calvin's loving mother, Mary-Beth, receives a shocking phone call from the police: her only son has been murdered.
Calvin's death sets into motion a series of events that sends each woman on a desperate search for answers. A complex whodunnit told from alternating points of view, Whidbey is searingly perceptive and astonishingly original. Exploring the long reach of violence and our flawed systems of incarceration and rehabilitation, this is a tense and provocative debut that's sure to incite crucial questions about the pursuit of justice and who has real power over a story: the one who lives it, or the one who tells it?
Birdie
I didn't know anything about Whidbey Island when I chose it, only that it was far. Only that it would take a great deal of work to get there, and more work to be found. When I say I closed my eyes and pointed to a map, I really mean that. I did. Red votive candle dripping over foil in the center of our dining room table, my girlfriend, Trace, sitting across from me, a full moon over north Brooklyn. Safety, we repeated, a Trace manifestation, and I hovered my hand as if feeling for heat—but when we opened our eyes to Elko, Nevada, it wasn't exactly far enough, so I moved my finger further west to Whidbey.
One month later Trace flew me to Seattle. We bought the one-way ferry ticket online, drove to the Mukilteo terminal. Then, there was my boat pulling in. Huge and white with a green lid over the top deck windows, a monstrous face to it, the gaping garage. Cars thumped from the ramp onto the ferry as I stepped on board, and it was dark in there, between all that machinery. I ...
With a chorus of voices narrating Whidbey and providing a panoramic view of the individuals and communities affected by the actions of a single person, T Kira Madden excavates the psychological toll of childhood sexual abuse with sensitivity. This is a heavy novel that unfolds propulsively with the tragic inevitability of a thriller, but through its bleakness, Madden focuses as much on healing as the trauma itself. Healing, famously never linear, is complicated for many of these characters by Calvin's death, and the question of justice—and whether it was achieved—remains central to the novel, as does the question of truth—how much of one's trauma does one owe to others?..continued
Full Review
(814 words)
(Reviewed by Rachel Hullett).
Adam Johnson, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning author of The Orphan Master's Son and Fortune Smiles
Epic in its scope, intimate in its evocation, Whidbey reads like a thriller, compels like a mystery and regarding the human condition, converses with the classics. It's hard to believe a first-time novelist produced a work as soulful and insightful as Whidbey; then again, one comes away certain that no other writer than T Kira Madden could have composed so profound an accounting. This is the book everyone will be talking about. Chanel Miller, New York Times bestselling author of Know My Name: A Memoir
To read T Kira Madden is to feel your insides endlessly shifting, between barbed and rage-simmering to amused and serene. This brilliant and ever-expanding novel evoked fervent head nods, internal screams, and stretches of pondering. I would follow T Kira anywhere.
Whidbey Island, approximately 45 miles long with a total land area of 168.7 square miles, is situated in the Pacific Northwest, off the coast of Washington and nestled in the waters of Puget Sound. Its original, ancestral name is Tscha-kole-chy, used by the Native tribes that first inhabited it, including the Lower Skagit, Swinomish, Suquamish, and Snohomish. The first known European sighting of Whidbey was in 1790 during a Spanish expedition, but Whidbey was not explored by European settlers until 1792, in an expedition by Captain George Vancouver. Two Royal Navy officers and members of Vancouver's expedition, Joseph Whidbey and Peter Puget, thoroughly mapped the area which would become known as Puget Sound. Vancouver christened the ...
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