Ken Jaworowski’s new novel What About the Bodies is a small town American crime novel. Told across three narratives, its focus is on ordinary people trying desperately, and often futilely to get out from underneath poverty, debt and the crime that seems to find them no matter what they do. The whole endeavour is set in a small rural town called Locksburg Pennsylvania, where even the two hour trip to Pittsburgh feels like an adventure.
Carla is in her forties and has decided her last chance is to start her own restaurant. She has thrown everything into the project but is thrown when her son admits to being involved in a terrible crime and she needs to help him cover up his involvement. Reed is an autistic young man who apparently killed his mother but now just wants to honour her last wish and put a doll that he made for her in her coffin. Unfortunately, on his journey to do this Reed encounters an old school nemesis who has now become a policeman. And Liz just wants to live out her musical dreams but is saddled with debt to an ex-con and a dodgy boyfriend who keeps dragging her into trouble.
For about three quarters of the book, these three narratives remain fairly separate from each other, spinning around different parts of the same town and just touching on each other at various points. And each of these stories is tense, twisty and engaging enough on its own. But slowly the three characters converge in an organic way to a single point before they spin off again on their respective journeys.
What About the Bodies is a “small” crime novel. This is not meant as a criticism. The characters are ordinary people in a small town each just trying to do the right thing but every step and every decision seems to take them further away from their goal. The tension comes from these mounting barriers and readers being able to empathise with the characters and cheer for them even when they are doing bad things. And just when readers think they understand everything there is to know, Jaworowski provides some more information which recontextualises that understanding in a darkly satisfying way.
What Ablout the Bodies by Ken Jaworowski
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