Of Vengeance
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
“Let's be honest: Who hasn't fantasized about shooting someone in the face with a hunting rifle?”
One day, a thirteen-year-old girl decides to startle a classmate. Instead, she accidentally kills him.
And she likes it.
Over the years, she begins experimenting with murder. Her victims are, of course, people that deserve it: a careless driver, a CEO of an energy corporation that is destroying the planet, a rapist. Every crime scene is flawless — untraceable and made to look like an accident or suicide. But, as she sleepwalks through her day job and lives in a crummy apartment, one thing becomes increasingly clear: she needs more.
Because nothing compares to the thrill of violent retribution.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this darkly funny novel, Quebecois author J.D. Kurtness tries to imagine what makes a misanthropic murderer tick. Her satirical portrait of a female serial killer has clever echoes of other texts (A Clockwork Orange, Fifth Business), but the narrator is the book’s most striking aspect—in part because it’s so refreshing and rare to read about an unapologetically evil woman. Of Vengeance is twisted and bitingly entertaining. It’s also, at times, weirdly relatable: Who among us hasn’t felt rage bubble up when a total jerk acts like he’s better than everyone else?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The anonymous narrator of Kurtness's satirical debut, which won Canada's Indigenous Voices Award for French Prose, kills people just because they annoy her. She becomes aware of her "vocation" at the age of 12, when she accidentally kills a classmate. His death plants the little seed of mayhem in her soul. As an adult, she works as a translator of such reality TV shows as Polygamous and Proud and Dwarves: Larger than Life. Her free time is spent getting even. She begins targeting vehicles "driven by people who consistently committed basic infractions. Excessive speeding, failure to stop for pedestrians, sound pollution, general boorishness." As she expands her murderous activities, she laments, "There are just too many people to choose from." She also rambles on about agrifood conglomerates, money-grubbing businessmen, complacent politicians, and radioactive waste disposal, among other peeves. Kurtness writes smoothly, but the black humor won't be to every taste. Readers into passive-aggressive fantasies will best appreciate this one.
