These Women
Sunday Times Book of the Month
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4.0 • 7 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
'Marvellous.' Daily Mail
'A stunning achievement.' Sunday Times, BOOK OF THE MONTH
'A gripping novel with a difference.'Psychologies
'Immersive and immensely powerful.'Guardian
'A haunting read but a quite brilliant one.' Independent i
'Intense, brutal and glittering, a call to listen to the voices of the ignored.'Observer
The dancer. The mother. The cop. The artist. The wife.
These women live by countless unspoken rules. How to dress; who to trust; which streets are safe and which are not. The rules grow out of a kaleidoscope of fear, anguish, power, loss and hope. Maybe it is only these rules which keep them alive.
When their neighbourhood is rocked by two murders, the careful existence these women have built for themselves begins to crumble.
'Pochoda turns grief, suffering and loss into art, crafting a literary thriller that is no less compelling for its deep emotional resonance.' Vogue
What readers are saying:
'Gritty and addicting.'
'The kind of storytelling you hope to find in your movie theaters one day.'
'Pochoda weaves a mystery that not only had me turning the page, but dwelling on lines of prose.'
'This book was far from what I was expecting it to be . . . I couldn't tear myself away.'
'I devoured it in one sitting . . . I LOVED IT.'
'This is one of those books that tears into you and doesn't let you go - even after you read the last page.'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fish shack owner Dorian Williams, one of several working-class women at the center of this heartbreaking novel, has done little to fill the void in her life in the 15 years since her teenage daughter, Lecia, was murdered in 1999 the 13th and presumed final victim of a serial killer who was never caught. Then one evening, near her fish shack in South Central L.A., a woman's body is dumped exactly as Lecia was, throat slit and a plastic bag over her face. Without sacrificing narrative drive, Pochoda (Wonder Valley) lets her story unfold organically and impressionistically, through the eyes of her distinctive female characters, who include Julianna, now a hard-partying cocktail waitress but once the child Lecia babysat the night she died; undersized Hispanic LAPD detective Essie, who knows all too well what it's like not to be taken seriously; and former hooker Feelia, left for dead back in 1999 after Lecia's murder, whose potentially critical information the police repeatedly ignore. This deep dive into the lives of women too often unseen in the shadows makes them vividly unforgettable.
Customer Reviews
A gem of a serial killer tale
Author
American. Grew up in Brooklyn. Now lives in Los Angeles. BA from Harvard College in Classics, MFA from Bennington. Three previous critically acclaimed novels. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Huffington Post, Self, and House & Garden.
Precis
These women on West Adams in South Los Angeles: women on the corner; women in the club; women who won’t stop asking questions; women who got what they deserved. In 1999, 13 women are found dead on the street (over a period of time, not all at once) with their throats slashed and their heads covered by a plastic bag. All but the last were working girls, so LAPD doesn't get too excited. The final one was a teen babysitter. Her Mom Dorian, a local small business proprietor, can't let it go. A 14th victim Orphelia (Feeley), another prostitute, survived and has the ugly scar to prove it. Fast forward to 2014, and four more girls get dead, same M.O., all on the game in one way or another. One was the girl whose babysitter got snuffed back in the day. Meanwhile, Feeley keeps complaining to the cops about being stalked by a white woman, but they all think she's crazy. All except Detective Esmeralda Perry (Essie), who has recently been moved from homicide to vice after some problems of her own, or rather her husband's except she gets blamed (typical). The serial killer investigation unfolds through the narratives of various women living in West Adams.
Writing
Slick, hip style I'm not young enough to pull off, but certainly admire and enjoy. It took 30 or so pages to get into it, but once I had, I was hooked. Effortless pacing. Character development superb. Themes include women who are undervalued (for whatever reason), race, privilege, yada, yada.
Bottom line
A cut above average for a serial killer story, make that 18 cuts (sorry). The bonus is that it plays equally well as a powerful character study (several, in fact), which makes Ms Pochoda, like, sick baller, dude (see Urban Dictionary for translation). The rest of her oeuvre is on my reading list as of yesterday.