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Listen To Me: A Gripping Gothic Psychological Thriller – A Road Trip and Storm Gone Hauntingly Awry
A page-turning modern gothic about a marriage and road trip gone hauntingly awry A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice “Pittard deserves the attention of anyone in search of today’s best fiction.” — Washington Post“Revelatory.” — The New Yorker “[Listen to Me] gripped me completely and even gave me nightmares, which is high praise in my book.” — Chicago Tribune Mark and Maggie’s annual drive east to visit family has gotten off to a rocky start. By the time they’re on the road, it’s late, a storm is brewing, and they are no longer speaking to each other. Adding to the stress, Maggie—recently mugged at gunpoint—is lately not herself, and Mark is at a loss about what to make of the stranger he calls his wife. When the couple is forced to stop for the night at a remote inn completely without power, Maggie’s paranoia reaches an all-time and terrifying high. But as Mark finds himself threatened in a dark parking lot, it’s Maggie who takes control. “Pittard proves herself a master of ordinary suspense.” — New York Times “Listen to Me elides so many genres that it’s Houdini-like, bursting through constraints. It moves between its two characters’ inner lives as effortlessly as an Olympic swimmer strokes through water.” — Ann Beattie, Paris Review blog “A psychologically complex, addictive, and quick-moving read. I didn’t want it to end!” — M.O. Walsh, author of New York Times best-selling novel My Sunshine Away
226 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 5, 2016
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July 26, 2018
this is a hard book to review. like the road trip it recounts, it's less about the journey than the destination. more finely put: the strength of this book is the way its ending changes the reader's perception of everything that's come before, and that revelation isn't an experience i want to take away from another reader.
road trips would probably be one of the correct answers to the family feud prompt: "name something that can cause strain in a relationship." and if the couple in question is already on shaky ground, a road trip can become a powder keg. mark and maggie had a strong marriage and reasonably happy lives until the night maggie was mugged at gunpoint and left unconscious mere blocks from their chicago apartment. she was just beginning to recover from the emotional and psychological fallout of her assault when two police officers came by with photos of a young woman found murdered nearby; a woman maggie had known in a casual neighborly way. there were similarities to both attacks, but when it became clear the the suspect in custody for the murder was not the same man who had attacked maggie; that he was still roaming free, maggie's anxieties returned stronger than ever and she became obsessed with seeking out news stories about violent crimes, staying in her house paralyzed by fear, paranoid that every alley hid a killer. she became a fretful, anxious woman; unrecognizable to mark, who is frustrated by this woman so different from the accomplished and confident woman he fell in love with. his dissatisfaction in their marriage leaves cracks for a flirtation with another women to slip in, although he has not yet acted on this temptation.
mark hopes that their annual road trip to visit to his parents on their farm in rural virginia will allow them the space and peace to relax and take some of the pressure off their relationship.
it does not go well.
little strains cause friction from the outset: a late start, crummy roadside coffee, traffic, their dog gerome's restlessness and anxiety; all contribute to the tension rippling under the surface of their marriage, breaking through occasionally with a snapped remark or a loaded silence, smoothed over only to reappear again as the trip progresses and the tedium and exhaustion that is part of any road trip slowly frays their nerves.
It drove Mark nuts that they had a neurotic dog. Neurotic people had neurotic dogs, and Mark was not a neurotic person. And Maggie was a vet, for Christ's sake. It made no sense that Gerome wasn't a more natural animal.
if animals really do mirror their owners' behaviors, it's clear who mark is actually frustrated with here, yeah?
the unexpected stressors escalate as the trip goes on: heavy rain and tornado warnings causing delays, detours, and blackouts, ambiguously threatening interactions with strangers, less ambiguously threatening interactions with aggressive drivers, and the narrative becomes an exercise in slowly simmering dramatic tension, where ordinary situations are given an ominous slant, like this lynchian scene that takes place in a rest stop bathroom:
spooky, right? this tone of unease recurs frequently, in a variety of ways, and it's an incredibly tense read for a book that's not even 200 pages long. there's a sense throughout of pittard pacing herself, holding back, playing with the reader who is infected by the claustrophobia in this car and in this relationship, bracing themselves for the big reveal, the big event: will it be here? will it be now? what will it be?
i wasn't sure what kind of a book this was going into it - whether it would be a dark psychological road trip crime story like vicki pettersson's book Swerve or the movie Breakdown, or whether it would turn into some supernatural horror story, and i don't want to spoil your journey on that matter, but i will say it's a strong character-driven read in which a relationship's past and present is dissected, its participants exposed enough as characters for the reader to see both their flaws and their good intentions, so frequently unexpressed and unacted-upon, but there nonetheless, powering the shreds of the relationship and healing it over:
Sure, they'd quarreled about the luggage and maybe the last three weeks had been more strained than usual, but quarrels, as Maggie and her former therapist had discussed, were the latticework of relationships. They were the branches. They were the branches - interlacing the pattern, strengthening the structure - that sheltered them and kept them together.
and that slap of an ending which i do want to discuss, but politely, behind a spoiler warning.
***************************************
it's great how every book i read lately has one huge thing i wanna talk about but noooooooo because spoilers....
thanks for making book-reviewing more challenging, authors of the world...
come to my blog!
road trips would probably be one of the correct answers to the family feud prompt: "name something that can cause strain in a relationship." and if the couple in question is already on shaky ground, a road trip can become a powder keg. mark and maggie had a strong marriage and reasonably happy lives until the night maggie was mugged at gunpoint and left unconscious mere blocks from their chicago apartment. she was just beginning to recover from the emotional and psychological fallout of her assault when two police officers came by with photos of a young woman found murdered nearby; a woman maggie had known in a casual neighborly way. there were similarities to both attacks, but when it became clear the the suspect in custody for the murder was not the same man who had attacked maggie; that he was still roaming free, maggie's anxieties returned stronger than ever and she became obsessed with seeking out news stories about violent crimes, staying in her house paralyzed by fear, paranoid that every alley hid a killer. she became a fretful, anxious woman; unrecognizable to mark, who is frustrated by this woman so different from the accomplished and confident woman he fell in love with. his dissatisfaction in their marriage leaves cracks for a flirtation with another women to slip in, although he has not yet acted on this temptation.
mark hopes that their annual road trip to visit to his parents on their farm in rural virginia will allow them the space and peace to relax and take some of the pressure off their relationship.
it does not go well.
little strains cause friction from the outset: a late start, crummy roadside coffee, traffic, their dog gerome's restlessness and anxiety; all contribute to the tension rippling under the surface of their marriage, breaking through occasionally with a snapped remark or a loaded silence, smoothed over only to reappear again as the trip progresses and the tedium and exhaustion that is part of any road trip slowly frays their nerves.
It drove Mark nuts that they had a neurotic dog. Neurotic people had neurotic dogs, and Mark was not a neurotic person. And Maggie was a vet, for Christ's sake. It made no sense that Gerome wasn't a more natural animal.
if animals really do mirror their owners' behaviors, it's clear who mark is actually frustrated with here, yeah?
the unexpected stressors escalate as the trip goes on: heavy rain and tornado warnings causing delays, detours, and blackouts, ambiguously threatening interactions with strangers, less ambiguously threatening interactions with aggressive drivers, and the narrative becomes an exercise in slowly simmering dramatic tension, where ordinary situations are given an ominous slant, like this lynchian scene that takes place in a rest stop bathroom:
It was a childish habit - checking under all the doors in a public washroom to make sure someone wasn't lurking - because what would Maggie do if she actually found someone? Scream? Fight back? Wilt? Yet she could never resist the urge.
In this particular bathroom, Maggie discovered only one pair of feet. They were at the far end of the glinty silver latrine, behind the final stall door, which was closed and, presumably, locked. And they were turned, these feet were, in the wrong direction - as if the person attached to them might be barfing or about to flush the toilet. …She was acutely aware of the sound coming from the only other compartment in use. Or, rather, she was aware of a lack of sound. Though she loathed in general the prospect of listening to another person pee (or worse), she was further loath to find herself in an enclosed space with someone who wasn't using it for its intended purpose…
Still squatting, Maggie bent over even farther and angled herself so that she could peek - her shorts around her knees - under the partition in the direction of the far toilet. Though there were several stalls between them, she could clearly make out the feet, which were now pointed firmly facing in Maggie's direction.
spooky, right? this tone of unease recurs frequently, in a variety of ways, and it's an incredibly tense read for a book that's not even 200 pages long. there's a sense throughout of pittard pacing herself, holding back, playing with the reader who is infected by the claustrophobia in this car and in this relationship, bracing themselves for the big reveal, the big event: will it be here? will it be now? what will it be?
i wasn't sure what kind of a book this was going into it - whether it would be a dark psychological road trip crime story like vicki pettersson's book Swerve or the movie Breakdown, or whether it would turn into some supernatural horror story, and i don't want to spoil your journey on that matter, but i will say it's a strong character-driven read in which a relationship's past and present is dissected, its participants exposed enough as characters for the reader to see both their flaws and their good intentions, so frequently unexpressed and unacted-upon, but there nonetheless, powering the shreds of the relationship and healing it over:
Sure, they'd quarreled about the luggage and maybe the last three weeks had been more strained than usual, but quarrels, as Maggie and her former therapist had discussed, were the latticework of relationships. They were the branches. They were the branches - interlacing the pattern, strengthening the structure - that sheltered them and kept them together.
and that slap of an ending which i do want to discuss, but politely, behind a spoiler warning.
***************************************
it's great how every book i read lately has one huge thing i wanna talk about but noooooooo because spoilers....
thanks for making book-reviewing more challenging, authors of the world...
come to my blog!
July 6, 2016
I received a copy of Listen to Me through NetGalley for an honest review. Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the opportunity.
Whoever would think that a long-distance car trip with an unbalanced wife, an emotionally removed husband, and a neurotic dog that can't seem to do his business, would be a good idea? Oh, and there's a powerful tri-state tornadic storm in the brew.
Mark and Maggie have reached an impass in their marriage. They can't seem to recognize and to acknowledge the pain and discord that resides in each of them as individuals. Maggie has been seeking therapy from the shocking aftermath of a mugging by gunpoint. Mark stands at a distance observing the meltdown. "Mark had a sudden sinking feeling that he was married to a loser". Harsh, very harsh. And Mark is treading onto the shore of a possible mingling with one of his college students.
Mark's answer: A roadtrip from Chicago to his parents' farm in Virginia. Stress thrown like lighter fluid on the already engulfing flames of this marriage and Maggie's trauma. Gerome, their excitable, prone to nervous behavior dog, absorbs the couple's tension like a sponge.
I've not read anything by Hannah Pittard before. She can write. "So far up, the sky is a port-wine stain of brooding purple, punctuated by flame-like lightning, train-sized thunder." But there are so many intrusions of writing tangents that go off the page like jagged slivers of glass making no transitions in this storyline.
I wanted to find something in this couple to embrace. I wanted to care about their well-being. And even moreso, I wanted to open the car door and let Gerome out. My only thought at the end was: You brought me along on this journey only for this?
Will search out other offerings by Hannah Pittard. Her writing talent must have found a soft place to land in other books. I'll let you decide on Listen to Me.
Whoever would think that a long-distance car trip with an unbalanced wife, an emotionally removed husband, and a neurotic dog that can't seem to do his business, would be a good idea? Oh, and there's a powerful tri-state tornadic storm in the brew.
Mark and Maggie have reached an impass in their marriage. They can't seem to recognize and to acknowledge the pain and discord that resides in each of them as individuals. Maggie has been seeking therapy from the shocking aftermath of a mugging by gunpoint. Mark stands at a distance observing the meltdown. "Mark had a sudden sinking feeling that he was married to a loser". Harsh, very harsh. And Mark is treading onto the shore of a possible mingling with one of his college students.
Mark's answer: A roadtrip from Chicago to his parents' farm in Virginia. Stress thrown like lighter fluid on the already engulfing flames of this marriage and Maggie's trauma. Gerome, their excitable, prone to nervous behavior dog, absorbs the couple's tension like a sponge.
I've not read anything by Hannah Pittard before. She can write. "So far up, the sky is a port-wine stain of brooding purple, punctuated by flame-like lightning, train-sized thunder." But there are so many intrusions of writing tangents that go off the page like jagged slivers of glass making no transitions in this storyline.
I wanted to find something in this couple to embrace. I wanted to care about their well-being. And even moreso, I wanted to open the car door and let Gerome out. My only thought at the end was: You brought me along on this journey only for this?
Will search out other offerings by Hannah Pittard. Her writing talent must have found a soft place to land in other books. I'll let you decide on Listen to Me.
September 13, 2020
“You can do what you will but you can’t will what you will.”
I actually laughed out loud when I saw the GR rating for this one, not being cruel of course I liked the book! But I can see so clearly the reason for it. This is the book full of what normally called “unlikeable characters” and basically two people in a marriage but they just resent each other, sometimes so much, that the fact they’re still together is a real head scratcher for you.
But for me, I liked their narrative voices although the husband is downright reprehensible and
I like the PTSD outlook from her, it reads very genuine and ‘real’ throughout.
This is my first Hannah Pittard book but I already got another one of hers (the one people seem to like more than this haha) lined up for next year since I liked her writing style in this one.
Audiobook narrated by Xe Sands
I actually laughed out loud when I saw the GR rating for this one, not being cruel of course I liked the book! But I can see so clearly the reason for it. This is the book full of what normally called “unlikeable characters” and basically two people in a marriage but they just resent each other, sometimes so much, that the fact they’re still together is a real head scratcher for you.
But for me, I liked their narrative voices although the husband is downright reprehensible and
I like the PTSD outlook from her, it reads very genuine and ‘real’ throughout.
This is my first Hannah Pittard book but I already got another one of hers (the one people seem to like more than this haha) lined up for next year since I liked her writing style in this one.
Audiobook narrated by Xe Sands
July 17, 2016
The only character who showed any believable growth was the dog and he fucking died.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 31, 2016
Living with fear can be utterly debilitating, even when you consider yourself to be a fairly rational, even-tempered person. Maggie, a veterinarian who runs her own clinic, has always been in control of her life, but that control started to dissipate a bit when she was mugged at gunpoint. While that threw her for a bit of a loop, and her husband, Mark, indulged her panic and fears, she finally starts to pull herself back together again, and get back to her usual routines.
When the police come to Maggie after a college student in their neighborhood is murdered by a person they suspect is Maggie's attacker, too, she is utterly unprepared. It's both a comfort and a disaster when they realize the young woman's assailant is not the same as Maggie's, because now she knows her attacker is still at large. But more than that, seeing the crime scene photos unleash a torrent of fears within Maggie, fears which practically disable her emotionally because she spends nearly all of her time worrying that every move she makes, every place she goes, everything she does has the potential to expose her to disaster.
Mark doesn't recognize or understand this new woman his wife has become, and he definitely doesn't like her—in fact, he can't stand to be around her. As they plan for their annual summer vacation, when they drive to Mark's family back east, the very notion of traveling already has Maggie panicking and Mark bristling and questioning his future with his wife. And then things go from bad to worse, as their drive takes them directly into the path of torrential rainstorms and potential tornadoes, and every decision they make is, at least in Maggie's mind, fraught with peril.
This is an interesting book, unlike Hannah Pittard's two earlier novels, The Fates Will Find Their Way (utterly superb) and Reunion (also quite good). Pittard ratchets up the tension little by little, until you find yourself wondering where disaster will strike. Will one of Maggie's fears actually manifest itself, and she'll be proven right, or will she come completely unmoored on the trip? Will Mark lose his patience once and for all with Maggie?
I thought this was a really compelling concept, but I didn't feel the payoff was quite as worthwhile as I had expected. As Maggie enumerated her every fear, over and over and over again, and as every decision she and Mark made had her second-guessing and panicking, you could see fairly quickly how frustrating living with her must have been for Mark. After a while I, too, grew weary of her worrying about everything. And at the end of the day, I expected more from the book, and was disappointed by the fairly predictable (and upsetting) conclusion.
Listen to Me is a fairly fast read—in fact, I read the book basically in one day. Pittard is a tremendously talented writer, and her storytelling ability is still on display in this book, but I guess my expectations were higher because I enjoyed her first two books so much. There's still a lot of tension in this book, so you may find it that it ultimately fulfills you more than it did me. But that being said, I'll still be waiting for her next book!
NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!
See all of my reviews at http://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blo....
When the police come to Maggie after a college student in their neighborhood is murdered by a person they suspect is Maggie's attacker, too, she is utterly unprepared. It's both a comfort and a disaster when they realize the young woman's assailant is not the same as Maggie's, because now she knows her attacker is still at large. But more than that, seeing the crime scene photos unleash a torrent of fears within Maggie, fears which practically disable her emotionally because she spends nearly all of her time worrying that every move she makes, every place she goes, everything she does has the potential to expose her to disaster.
Mark doesn't recognize or understand this new woman his wife has become, and he definitely doesn't like her—in fact, he can't stand to be around her. As they plan for their annual summer vacation, when they drive to Mark's family back east, the very notion of traveling already has Maggie panicking and Mark bristling and questioning his future with his wife. And then things go from bad to worse, as their drive takes them directly into the path of torrential rainstorms and potential tornadoes, and every decision they make is, at least in Maggie's mind, fraught with peril.
This is an interesting book, unlike Hannah Pittard's two earlier novels, The Fates Will Find Their Way (utterly superb) and Reunion (also quite good). Pittard ratchets up the tension little by little, until you find yourself wondering where disaster will strike. Will one of Maggie's fears actually manifest itself, and she'll be proven right, or will she come completely unmoored on the trip? Will Mark lose his patience once and for all with Maggie?
I thought this was a really compelling concept, but I didn't feel the payoff was quite as worthwhile as I had expected. As Maggie enumerated her every fear, over and over and over again, and as every decision she and Mark made had her second-guessing and panicking, you could see fairly quickly how frustrating living with her must have been for Mark. After a while I, too, grew weary of her worrying about everything. And at the end of the day, I expected more from the book, and was disappointed by the fairly predictable (and upsetting) conclusion.
Listen to Me is a fairly fast read—in fact, I read the book basically in one day. Pittard is a tremendously talented writer, and her storytelling ability is still on display in this book, but I guess my expectations were higher because I enjoyed her first two books so much. There's still a lot of tension in this book, so you may find it that it ultimately fulfills you more than it did me. But that being said, I'll still be waiting for her next book!
NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!
See all of my reviews at http://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blo....
April 9, 2016
Nope, no thanks, not for me.
(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. This review contains clearly marked spoilers.)
Mark and Maggie's annual drive east to visit family has gotten off to a rocky start. By the time they're on the road, it's late, a storm is brewing, and they are no longer speaking to one another. Adding to the stress, Maggie — recently mugged at gunpoint — is lately not herself, and Mark is at a loss about what to make of the stranger he calls his wife. Forced to stop for the night at a remote inn, completely without power, Maggie's paranoia reaches an all-time and terrifying high. But when Mark finds himself threatened in a dark parking lot, it’s Maggie who takes control. (Synopsis via Goodreads.)
Surely I can't be the only one envisioning a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after reading this description? Picture it: months after being mugged at gunpoint and knocked unconscious in an alley, Maggie once again finds herself in a perilous position. Only this time's she's ready. Prepared. Expecting it, even, thanks to the PTSD and anxiety and depression. And she fights back. Kicks some serious ass. Maybe comes to her husband Mark's rescue. Mark, the same guy who's spent the better part of a year tiptoeing around her, walking on eggshells, maybe even scoffed at her paranoia, once or twice, when he thought she wasn't looking. Bonus points if he's entertained fantasies about how he would have protected HIS WOMAN, if only he had been there when it happened. But now that he is, he's paralyzed with fear, unable to protect himself, let alone his wife. Yeah. That's what I'd expected, going into Listen to Me.
As it turns out, this is the most misleading yet still dead accurate book description I've seen in a while. Maybe ever. Certainly in recent memory.
Here are three reasons why I disliked Listen to Me, from least to most spoilery:
1. Mark is completely unlikable - and not in an entertaining way (see, e.g., everyone in Gone Girl), but in a "rooting for his death, can't wait for him to get chopped up into bloody pieces and fed to Jeffrey Dahmer" kind of way.
So his wife was mugged at gunpoint and assaulted - knocked unconscious with the butt of said gun - nine months ago, just blocks from her doorstep. Since that time, she's been going to therapy; taking Valium; and meditating. Trying to move on with her life, you know? Despite the crippling depression, anxiety, and likely PTSD. And she'd been getting better!
Until one day, three weeks ago, the cops showed up on her doorstep and showed her some very gruesome crime scene photos. A young woman was murdered in their neighborhood, and they suspect that the same man might also be behind Maggie's assault. (Both perpetrators remain at large.) Naturally this triggered Maggie and completely derailed any progress she'd made. (DAMMIT, BENSON AND STABLER, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?)
And now, instead of at least playing at being a compassionate, understanding husband, Mark's kind of acting like a dick. He's lost his patience. He knows women who bounced back from miscarriages, and no one died here, so why can't Maggie just be okay already? He holds his wife's mental illness against her, thinking it makes her "weak" and a "loser." He's embarrassed by her, entertains fantasies of leaving her (for Elizabeth, his much-younger ex-research assistant, with whom he's been exchanging racy emails for months), and generally avoids her when possible.
Mark is also just an awful person in general. He's pretentious, self-centered, and a bigot and a hypocrite. He readily acknowledges that, if Maggie was doing what he was doing with Elizabeth, he'd be livid: yet this isn't enough to compel him to stop. He wants Maggie to stop being helpless and acting like a victim - yet he recoils when he finds the weapons she's hidden around the house. (Did you want her to fend off a mugger with her clutch, hmmm? PLENTY OF WOMEN CARRY MACE OKAY.)
He vocally and frequently scorns technology - including in his job as a college prof. - under the premise that it makes us stupid and saps away our humanity. (Because yeah, humans never treated each other cruelly prior to 1983.) He kind of reads like a privileged white guy who wants nothing more than a return to the "good old days" ... of criminalized abortion and Jim Crow. The days when things were indeed awesome, for people who looked just like him.
He actually calls himself an outlier-slash-genius at one point. For reals!
My absolute favorite passage comes when Maggie calls him on his bullshit. During their drive east, Mark begins complaining how it's so selfish for people to live in the middle of nowhere; cities are more environmentally friendly. Never mind that they're en route to spend the summer at his parents' farm...in the middle of nowhere.
“In ten more years, towns like this won’t exist,” Mark said. “Did you see all those For Sale signs? Everything is empty. It’s just not cost-effective to live in the middle of nowhere. It’s irresponsible.”
“Your parents live in the middle of nowhere,” she said.
“It’s different. They live off the grid.”
“No,” she said. “They don’t. They aren’t farmers. They’re retirees. They couldn’t live without access to the city.”
"My father still teaches.”
“He’s emeritus. He teaches once a year,” she said. Then, after a beat: “When he feels like it.”
Maggie ends up apologizing. *head desk*
Anyway, Mark is awful and he doesn't die, which is even more awful.
2. The occasional out-of-left-field digressions. I'd say that they slow the action down, except there isn't much action to speak of.
To wit:
Immediately beneath Maggie’s moccasins was a freshly paved twelve-inch surface covering made of sand and rock glued together with man-made hydrocarbons, beneath which was a six-inch layer of recycled asphalt product, beneath which was an underlayment of gravel, beneath which — deep, deep, deep beneath — was the continental crust itself, igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary. Some twenty miles beneath the crust was the lithosphere, beneath which was the asthenosphere, beneath which was the upper mantel, beneath which was the liquid outer core, beneath which was the solid inner core, where — on this particular day — the temperature was just shy of 10,800°F, as hot as the surface of the sun.
Some thirty-nine thousand miles above, Maggie shivered.
Like, I guess that's lovely, but it's so random and irrelevant to the plot that I don't really see the point.
** spoiler alert! **
3. The ending.
Okay, so the denouement comes very late in the book (around the 85% mark) and is not at all what I expected. The buildup is long and drawn out and doesn't ultimately deliver. It kind of boggles my mind that a 200-page book could feel bloated, weighed down by excess material, and yet Listen to Me does. But I digress.
So here it is: while walking Gerome in the hotel parking lot, Mark gets into a confrontation with a a group of people who have parked there for the night. Whether on purpose (which is what I'm leaning toward) or accidentally, in their haste to get away, one of the cars runs Gerome down. Maggie is asleep in the hotel room when it happens; Mark fetches her after the fact. A veterinarian, Maggie euthanizes Gerome right there in the parking lot. And...that's it. Scene.
To be fair, I anticipated Gerome's death. Everyone knows that the dog always bites it in a horror story. What I didn't expect was that Gerome's death would be the fucking main attraction. 185 pages, and all we get for our patience is a dead dog.
Maybe this is a personal preference, but I suspect that many dog lovers will be turned off by this twist. I'm not generally faint of heart - I recently finished the werewolf story Mongrels, the landscape of which is littered with dead animals, including a fair number of dogs - but a little warning would be nice. Even Stephen King let readers know what they were getting into with Cujo and Pet Sematary. (Both of which, by the by, my dad read to me as a kid. Which also goes to the "not faint of heart" thing.)
And the euthanasia is like the icing on the Cake Wreck. Anyone who's ever sat by a beloved friend for this is all but guaranteed to lose her shit. My oldest dog Peedee died of cancer just before Thanksgiving, and I just now (as of this writing in April) found out that another one of my dogs has cancer. Peedee was euthanized at home, using Maggie's own cocktail of drugs. I wouldn't call the ending traumatizing, exactly, but it sure ripped open some scabs that were just starting to heal. So thanks for that.
** end spoilers **
Either way, it all just feels very cheap and pointless. Even more so when you factor in Mark and Maggie's Freaky Friday-esque swapping of fears/world-views that follows. Add 'em all up, and it seems like this book suffers from delusions of grandeur; that it imagines itself to be deeper and more philosophical than it actually is.
Again, my feelings could be colored by the ending, but. I wasn't exactly loving the book up to this point, so I don't think that's all of it.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to drown my feelings in a steaming hot cup of Daiya cheese sauce, enjoyed from the bottom of a snuggly, warm dog pile.
http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/07/06/...
(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. This review contains clearly marked spoilers.)
Mark and Maggie's annual drive east to visit family has gotten off to a rocky start. By the time they're on the road, it's late, a storm is brewing, and they are no longer speaking to one another. Adding to the stress, Maggie — recently mugged at gunpoint — is lately not herself, and Mark is at a loss about what to make of the stranger he calls his wife. Forced to stop for the night at a remote inn, completely without power, Maggie's paranoia reaches an all-time and terrifying high. But when Mark finds himself threatened in a dark parking lot, it’s Maggie who takes control. (Synopsis via Goodreads.)
Surely I can't be the only one envisioning a Roaring Rampage of Revenge after reading this description? Picture it: months after being mugged at gunpoint and knocked unconscious in an alley, Maggie once again finds herself in a perilous position. Only this time's she's ready. Prepared. Expecting it, even, thanks to the PTSD and anxiety and depression. And she fights back. Kicks some serious ass. Maybe comes to her husband Mark's rescue. Mark, the same guy who's spent the better part of a year tiptoeing around her, walking on eggshells, maybe even scoffed at her paranoia, once or twice, when he thought she wasn't looking. Bonus points if he's entertained fantasies about how he would have protected HIS WOMAN, if only he had been there when it happened. But now that he is, he's paralyzed with fear, unable to protect himself, let alone his wife. Yeah. That's what I'd expected, going into Listen to Me.
As it turns out, this is the most misleading yet still dead accurate book description I've seen in a while. Maybe ever. Certainly in recent memory.
Here are three reasons why I disliked Listen to Me, from least to most spoilery:
1. Mark is completely unlikable - and not in an entertaining way (see, e.g., everyone in Gone Girl), but in a "rooting for his death, can't wait for him to get chopped up into bloody pieces and fed to Jeffrey Dahmer" kind of way.
So his wife was mugged at gunpoint and assaulted - knocked unconscious with the butt of said gun - nine months ago, just blocks from her doorstep. Since that time, she's been going to therapy; taking Valium; and meditating. Trying to move on with her life, you know? Despite the crippling depression, anxiety, and likely PTSD. And she'd been getting better!
Until one day, three weeks ago, the cops showed up on her doorstep and showed her some very gruesome crime scene photos. A young woman was murdered in their neighborhood, and they suspect that the same man might also be behind Maggie's assault. (Both perpetrators remain at large.) Naturally this triggered Maggie and completely derailed any progress she'd made. (DAMMIT, BENSON AND STABLER, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?)
And now, instead of at least playing at being a compassionate, understanding husband, Mark's kind of acting like a dick. He's lost his patience. He knows women who bounced back from miscarriages, and no one died here, so why can't Maggie just be okay already? He holds his wife's mental illness against her, thinking it makes her "weak" and a "loser." He's embarrassed by her, entertains fantasies of leaving her (for Elizabeth, his much-younger ex-research assistant, with whom he's been exchanging racy emails for months), and generally avoids her when possible.
Mark is also just an awful person in general. He's pretentious, self-centered, and a bigot and a hypocrite. He readily acknowledges that, if Maggie was doing what he was doing with Elizabeth, he'd be livid: yet this isn't enough to compel him to stop. He wants Maggie to stop being helpless and acting like a victim - yet he recoils when he finds the weapons she's hidden around the house. (Did you want her to fend off a mugger with her clutch, hmmm? PLENTY OF WOMEN CARRY MACE OKAY.)
He vocally and frequently scorns technology - including in his job as a college prof. - under the premise that it makes us stupid and saps away our humanity. (Because yeah, humans never treated each other cruelly prior to 1983.) He kind of reads like a privileged white guy who wants nothing more than a return to the "good old days" ... of criminalized abortion and Jim Crow. The days when things were indeed awesome, for people who looked just like him.
He actually calls himself an outlier-slash-genius at one point. For reals!
My absolute favorite passage comes when Maggie calls him on his bullshit. During their drive east, Mark begins complaining how it's so selfish for people to live in the middle of nowhere; cities are more environmentally friendly. Never mind that they're en route to spend the summer at his parents' farm...in the middle of nowhere.
“In ten more years, towns like this won’t exist,” Mark said. “Did you see all those For Sale signs? Everything is empty. It’s just not cost-effective to live in the middle of nowhere. It’s irresponsible.”
“Your parents live in the middle of nowhere,” she said.
“It’s different. They live off the grid.”
“No,” she said. “They don’t. They aren’t farmers. They’re retirees. They couldn’t live without access to the city.”
"My father still teaches.”
“He’s emeritus. He teaches once a year,” she said. Then, after a beat: “When he feels like it.”
Maggie ends up apologizing. *head desk*
Anyway, Mark is awful and he doesn't die, which is even more awful.
2. The occasional out-of-left-field digressions. I'd say that they slow the action down, except there isn't much action to speak of.
To wit:
Immediately beneath Maggie’s moccasins was a freshly paved twelve-inch surface covering made of sand and rock glued together with man-made hydrocarbons, beneath which was a six-inch layer of recycled asphalt product, beneath which was an underlayment of gravel, beneath which — deep, deep, deep beneath — was the continental crust itself, igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary. Some twenty miles beneath the crust was the lithosphere, beneath which was the asthenosphere, beneath which was the upper mantel, beneath which was the liquid outer core, beneath which was the solid inner core, where — on this particular day — the temperature was just shy of 10,800°F, as hot as the surface of the sun.
Some thirty-nine thousand miles above, Maggie shivered.
Like, I guess that's lovely, but it's so random and irrelevant to the plot that I don't really see the point.
** spoiler alert! **
3. The ending.
Okay, so the denouement comes very late in the book (around the 85% mark) and is not at all what I expected. The buildup is long and drawn out and doesn't ultimately deliver. It kind of boggles my mind that a 200-page book could feel bloated, weighed down by excess material, and yet Listen to Me does. But I digress.
So here it is: while walking Gerome in the hotel parking lot, Mark gets into a confrontation with a a group of people who have parked there for the night. Whether on purpose (which is what I'm leaning toward) or accidentally, in their haste to get away, one of the cars runs Gerome down. Maggie is asleep in the hotel room when it happens; Mark fetches her after the fact. A veterinarian, Maggie euthanizes Gerome right there in the parking lot. And...that's it. Scene.
To be fair, I anticipated Gerome's death. Everyone knows that the dog always bites it in a horror story. What I didn't expect was that Gerome's death would be the fucking main attraction. 185 pages, and all we get for our patience is a dead dog.
Maybe this is a personal preference, but I suspect that many dog lovers will be turned off by this twist. I'm not generally faint of heart - I recently finished the werewolf story Mongrels, the landscape of which is littered with dead animals, including a fair number of dogs - but a little warning would be nice. Even Stephen King let readers know what they were getting into with Cujo and Pet Sematary. (Both of which, by the by, my dad read to me as a kid. Which also goes to the "not faint of heart" thing.)
And the euthanasia is like the icing on the Cake Wreck. Anyone who's ever sat by a beloved friend for this is all but guaranteed to lose her shit. My oldest dog Peedee died of cancer just before Thanksgiving, and I just now (as of this writing in April) found out that another one of my dogs has cancer. Peedee was euthanized at home, using Maggie's own cocktail of drugs. I wouldn't call the ending traumatizing, exactly, but it sure ripped open some scabs that were just starting to heal. So thanks for that.
** end spoilers **
Either way, it all just feels very cheap and pointless. Even more so when you factor in Mark and Maggie's Freaky Friday-esque swapping of fears/world-views that follows. Add 'em all up, and it seems like this book suffers from delusions of grandeur; that it imagines itself to be deeper and more philosophical than it actually is.
Again, my feelings could be colored by the ending, but. I wasn't exactly loving the book up to this point, so I don't think that's all of it.
And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to drown my feelings in a steaming hot cup of Daiya cheese sauce, enjoyed from the bottom of a snuggly, warm dog pile.
http://www.easyvegan.info/2016/07/06/...
June 24, 2016
Maggie is not herself after being assaulted and mugged at gunpoint, her husband, Mark, is concerned she's no longer the same woman he married. He decides they need a change of scenery and should visit his family home in Virginia. They get a late start leaving Chicago and are on the road longer than they had hoped to be. Eventually they're forced to find lodging at a secluded inn where a violent storm has cause the whole area to be without power.
The promotional blurb says "Maggie's paranoia reaches an all-time and terrifying high. But when Mark finds himself threatened in a dark parking lot, it's Maggie who takes control." I have to say this last sentence makes the story out to be something very different from what it actually is and some readers will be very disappointed.
In addition to the misleading description regarding the suspenseful climax I was disappointed by the characters the author created, they were not very realistic or fully developed and their inner thoughts did not make them any more endearing. The husband is especially unlikable, he's not kind or sympathetic toward his wife, who is having a difficult time dealing with the trauma of her assault.
There are things this couple does and things the characters think, that had me shaking my head. Some of it just didn't make sense to me, Maggie thinks they need some time away from each other and going to visit Mark's parents will offer them, not time alone but time apart. I never thought of visiting the in-laws as a way to spend less time with my husband, I'm not sure adding more people to a group is the way to be alone.
Occasionally there is an almost meditative string of consciousness narrative that doesn't seem to tie into this story at all. Mark's perspective on technology and the internet doesn't seem logical or rational and it makes his character seem strange and unrealistic. At one point he says that Maggie is killing him because she's looking at her smart phone. His opinions could have been cultivated and developed, making him into a real "out there" kind of guy but they just seem somewhat disconnected from the rest of his character.
Let me insert a SPOILER WARNING here. I want to caution those who don't want to have anything spoiled that you should avoid this paragraph.
I also had a difficult time believing some things that happen along the way. I found it very difficult to believe that someone who is driving from Chicago to Virginia is going to drink multiple alcoholic beverages on the way. Multiple cups of coffee seems logical but beer doesn't seem like it would be the drink of choice for a mature adult on a long road trip. At one point the couple returns to the car where they've left their clingy dog while they ate dinner. When they get back in the car the dog doesn't wake up. The previous narrative described how anxious and attached to the couple the dog is. Having him sleep through their return doesn't effect the storyline but the detail was so far from my personal experience and out of character for the dog I had to shake my head. It's a small unimportant detail but it doesn't add verisimilitude to the story. The same is true for more important details about; where the car gets parked, communication about what's happening, Mark leaving Maggie alone in an unsecured car or hotel room while she is asleep and unaware. None of those details seemed at all realistic but they did add to the suspense of the story.
END OF SPOILERS
I didn't care for this novel and was particularly disappointed by the ending and the lack of accuracy in the promotional material, I think other readers will be disappointed as well.
The promotional blurb says "Maggie's paranoia reaches an all-time and terrifying high. But when Mark finds himself threatened in a dark parking lot, it's Maggie who takes control." I have to say this last sentence makes the story out to be something very different from what it actually is and some readers will be very disappointed.
In addition to the misleading description regarding the suspenseful climax I was disappointed by the characters the author created, they were not very realistic or fully developed and their inner thoughts did not make them any more endearing. The husband is especially unlikable, he's not kind or sympathetic toward his wife, who is having a difficult time dealing with the trauma of her assault.
There are things this couple does and things the characters think, that had me shaking my head. Some of it just didn't make sense to me, Maggie thinks they need some time away from each other and going to visit Mark's parents will offer them, not time alone but time apart. I never thought of visiting the in-laws as a way to spend less time with my husband, I'm not sure adding more people to a group is the way to be alone.
Occasionally there is an almost meditative string of consciousness narrative that doesn't seem to tie into this story at all. Mark's perspective on technology and the internet doesn't seem logical or rational and it makes his character seem strange and unrealistic. At one point he says that Maggie is killing him because she's looking at her smart phone. His opinions could have been cultivated and developed, making him into a real "out there" kind of guy but they just seem somewhat disconnected from the rest of his character.
Let me insert a SPOILER WARNING here. I want to caution those who don't want to have anything spoiled that you should avoid this paragraph.
I also had a difficult time believing some things that happen along the way. I found it very difficult to believe that someone who is driving from Chicago to Virginia is going to drink multiple alcoholic beverages on the way. Multiple cups of coffee seems logical but beer doesn't seem like it would be the drink of choice for a mature adult on a long road trip. At one point the couple returns to the car where they've left their clingy dog while they ate dinner. When they get back in the car the dog doesn't wake up. The previous narrative described how anxious and attached to the couple the dog is. Having him sleep through their return doesn't effect the storyline but the detail was so far from my personal experience and out of character for the dog I had to shake my head. It's a small unimportant detail but it doesn't add verisimilitude to the story. The same is true for more important details about; where the car gets parked, communication about what's happening, Mark leaving Maggie alone in an unsecured car or hotel room while she is asleep and unaware. None of those details seemed at all realistic but they did add to the suspense of the story.
END OF SPOILERS
I didn't care for this novel and was particularly disappointed by the ending and the lack of accuracy in the promotional material, I think other readers will be disappointed as well.
September 10, 2017
Listen to Me is an excellent psychological thriller and, unlike a lot of books in that genre, it really is psychological. Sure, it has a great premise, dark and creepy, but it mainly takes place in the heads of its two main characters, and that's where the vast majority of the suspense is derived.
Mark and Maggie are a married couple taking a road trip from their home in Chicago to Mark's parents' farm in Virginia. It's a trip that should take about a day, but a line of tornadoes stretching across the Midwest thwarts their plans. Maggie has recently had a traumatic experience, which colors her view of the world; Mark is critical of the way Maggie has handled the traumatic experience, which colors the way he sees her; and Maggie is aware that Mark is feeling critical of her, which colors how she sees him. The chapters alternate between their points of view, and most of the book involves each character trying to figure out what the other one is thinking, and sometimes acting or reacting based only on what they think the other character expects of them and whether they want to shore up that expectation or dash it. Neither of these characters is mentally ill or significantly disturbed; they just have issues, and the way they handle those issues naturally results in some... consequences.
Maybe it was just a case of the right book at the right time, but I devoured this book and thought it was crazy suspenseful. At the same time I marveled at the way Hannah Pittard could create such a fast-moving story with just a few shady goings-on and a lot of unexpressed thoughts and feelings. The book is short, lean and taut, and Pittard really sticks the landing—which is saying something, because I had no idea how she was going to wrap this up in a way that worked with all the rest of it. But she absolutely did. I mean, it was a disturbing ending, but it definitely worked.
I was pretty shocked to see that the average Goodreads rating for this book is so low—less than three stars! Maybe all those people were expecting a more conventional thriller? Well, if possible, don't go into Listen to Me with any expectations. Just get in the car with Mark and Maggie and allow yourself to be caught off guard just as they are.
Mark and Maggie are a married couple taking a road trip from their home in Chicago to Mark's parents' farm in Virginia. It's a trip that should take about a day, but a line of tornadoes stretching across the Midwest thwarts their plans. Maggie has recently had a traumatic experience, which colors her view of the world; Mark is critical of the way Maggie has handled the traumatic experience, which colors the way he sees her; and Maggie is aware that Mark is feeling critical of her, which colors how she sees him. The chapters alternate between their points of view, and most of the book involves each character trying to figure out what the other one is thinking, and sometimes acting or reacting based only on what they think the other character expects of them and whether they want to shore up that expectation or dash it. Neither of these characters is mentally ill or significantly disturbed; they just have issues, and the way they handle those issues naturally results in some... consequences.
Maybe it was just a case of the right book at the right time, but I devoured this book and thought it was crazy suspenseful. At the same time I marveled at the way Hannah Pittard could create such a fast-moving story with just a few shady goings-on and a lot of unexpressed thoughts and feelings. The book is short, lean and taut, and Pittard really sticks the landing—which is saying something, because I had no idea how she was going to wrap this up in a way that worked with all the rest of it. But she absolutely did. I mean, it was a disturbing ending, but it definitely worked.
I was pretty shocked to see that the average Goodreads rating for this book is so low—less than three stars! Maybe all those people were expecting a more conventional thriller? Well, if possible, don't go into Listen to Me with any expectations. Just get in the car with Mark and Maggie and allow yourself to be caught off guard just as they are.
July 15, 2016
I really wanted to like this book. Everything seemed to be in place for a great story. Two people in a relationship slowly going south, taking a cross country road trip and getting caught in a storm. Then came the creepy-like little motel off the beaten path. It didn't end up being anything like I thought it would be. The blurb made it sound like a bit of a mystery/thriller. I just didn't warm much to the couple. I kept waiting for something to happen and when it finally did it was a bit of a let down.
As always I'd like to thank Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishers for allowing me the opportunity of reading this Advanced Copy.
As always I'd like to thank Netgalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishers for allowing me the opportunity of reading this Advanced Copy.
August 1, 2016
A road trip gone horribly wrong. An event in a parking lot where Maggie, who has been recently mugged, and hasn't been herself since, takes control. That description leads you to believe that what occurs will be healing. That Maggie will face another violent act head on, and come out triumphant. Very misleading. Her husband, Mark, an unlikable guy, with no sympathy for what his wife has endured, does have a confrontation in the motel parking lot. But it results in their beloved dog, getting hit by a truck. Maggie, a veterinarian, who earlier in the night left the dog in their parked car while she and Mark grabbed dinner and several beers before getting back on the road(seriously, would a responsible VET do that?) must be woken up to euthanize him. That is "taking control" of the situation? And, Mark, feels that because she could handle that, their future suddenly looks bright again? I don't believe that would be a healing event for a victim of crime or for a marriage. And, I certainly don't want to read about a dog getting hit by a truck! On a separate note, the author seemed to like to describe women and dogs urinating, as she did so several times. I don't want to read about that either. SKIP this book! IT should have never been published!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 14, 2015
It's settled: I will now have to read everything Hannah Pittard deems worthy of publishing. Pittard shot to my attention with her debut, THE FATES WILL FIND THEIR WAY, and after reading her next two books, I am in awe of her chameleon-like ability to shift tone and style to fit the narrative she's telling. LISTEN TO ME is unsettling, and yet also playful - two difficult emotions to balance. So much of the book depends on the conclusion, so I don't want to play spoiler here, but suffice it to say that I spent a good amount of time wondering if this was a psychological thriller or a supernatural horror. A small part of me is sad that it couldn't be both, but the rest of me is in awe of the way she walks that tightrope. The copy on the back of the ARC I read gives away way too much of the plot, but if this book is framed in the right way, I could see it being her most commercial book yet.
August 20, 2021
Review originally published on January 26, 2018
A one or two night psychological thriller? I thought this to be a perfect size for me since I have been in a bit of a reading drought. I also chose this one, because it is written by a relatively new author. Listen to Me by Hannah Pittard is a book about a young couple, Mark, a college professor and Maggie, a veterinarian (and their dog Gerome) who set out on their annual cross country road trip to see Mark’s parents who Maggie adores for reasons of a lack of affection in her childhood.
Most of the book takes place in their car. They are met with some stormy weather and darkness which alone puts suspense in this story. It’s funny how darkness distorts the outdoors in a scary way. But, even more so it’s really more about their unbalanced relationship. It doesn’t help that Maggie was a mugging victim and is still recovering.
At times their relationship seems pretty solid, both of them engaging in laughter and tenderness, but other times there seems to be undertones of a strained marriage stemming from Mark’s inability to be emotionally attached to his wife and Maggie’s debilitating fear. Maggie tries to make Mark see the evil in the everyday world, but Mark just doesn’t see it. He does have another distraction, an aggressive college student who is attracted to him and contacts him through email, but Maggie has no idea.
So, there is a lot going on in this short story! It turns out that what seems to be evil during their journey in this Hitchcock type story isn’t in fact evil. Hannah Pittard succeeded in engaging the reader’s imagination throughout the entire story. Without giving away the ending, let’s just say a turn of events changes Maggie and Mark’s lives, and changes the reader’s perception of everything that’s happened before.
Hannah is the author of two more novels, Reunion and The Fates Will Find Their Way. You can find Listen to Me at the Onalaska Library, but please visit our other La Crosse branches in Bangor, Campbell, Holmen, and West Salem.
Find this book and other titles within our catalog.
A one or two night psychological thriller? I thought this to be a perfect size for me since I have been in a bit of a reading drought. I also chose this one, because it is written by a relatively new author. Listen to Me by Hannah Pittard is a book about a young couple, Mark, a college professor and Maggie, a veterinarian (and their dog Gerome) who set out on their annual cross country road trip to see Mark’s parents who Maggie adores for reasons of a lack of affection in her childhood.
Most of the book takes place in their car. They are met with some stormy weather and darkness which alone puts suspense in this story. It’s funny how darkness distorts the outdoors in a scary way. But, even more so it’s really more about their unbalanced relationship. It doesn’t help that Maggie was a mugging victim and is still recovering.
At times their relationship seems pretty solid, both of them engaging in laughter and tenderness, but other times there seems to be undertones of a strained marriage stemming from Mark’s inability to be emotionally attached to his wife and Maggie’s debilitating fear. Maggie tries to make Mark see the evil in the everyday world, but Mark just doesn’t see it. He does have another distraction, an aggressive college student who is attracted to him and contacts him through email, but Maggie has no idea.
So, there is a lot going on in this short story! It turns out that what seems to be evil during their journey in this Hitchcock type story isn’t in fact evil. Hannah Pittard succeeded in engaging the reader’s imagination throughout the entire story. Without giving away the ending, let’s just say a turn of events changes Maggie and Mark’s lives, and changes the reader’s perception of everything that’s happened before.
Hannah is the author of two more novels, Reunion and The Fates Will Find Their Way. You can find Listen to Me at the Onalaska Library, but please visit our other La Crosse branches in Bangor, Campbell, Holmen, and West Salem.
Find this book and other titles within our catalog.
July 5, 2016
This one was a bit of a surprise to me. I expected it to be more of a thriller. But instead I found an in-depth character study of a man, Mark, and his wife, Maggie. Maggie has recently been mugged and has become paranoid and fearful. She spends too much time on the internet reading stories of the evil men do to others to Mark, who doesn’t want to hear them. She tries to make Mark see the evil in the world. Mark is struggling with the changes that the mugging has brought into their lives. They set off on a trip to visit Mark’s parents and run into violent storms and they end up in an out-of-the-way hotel with no power.
The suspense is very slow building but the menace is felt throughout the book. I had chosen this book because I read that it was a Hitchcockian tale. It is in the sense that the danger is implied and your imagination fills in what may happen but it isn’t a horror book. I felt an edgy uneasiness as I read. It’s not only what’s happening to this couple during the trip that gives chills – the storm, the dark roads, the menacing characters, the possible dangers around the corner – but it’s also all the turmoil and angst within them that kept me glued to the pages. It’s a very quick read that even includes commentary on the perils of our technological world and how technology has impacted our relationships with each other. There’s not a lot of action in this book. It’s slow moving and reflective. I enjoyed this surprising little book and do recommend it.
This book was given to me by the publisher through Edelweiss in return for an honest review.
The suspense is very slow building but the menace is felt throughout the book. I had chosen this book because I read that it was a Hitchcockian tale. It is in the sense that the danger is implied and your imagination fills in what may happen but it isn’t a horror book. I felt an edgy uneasiness as I read. It’s not only what’s happening to this couple during the trip that gives chills – the storm, the dark roads, the menacing characters, the possible dangers around the corner – but it’s also all the turmoil and angst within them that kept me glued to the pages. It’s a very quick read that even includes commentary on the perils of our technological world and how technology has impacted our relationships with each other. There’s not a lot of action in this book. It’s slow moving and reflective. I enjoyed this surprising little book and do recommend it.
This book was given to me by the publisher through Edelweiss in return for an honest review.
June 6, 2016
It was a dark and stormy night.
That simple sentence is a set-up of many novels but in Hannah Pittard’s capable hands, it’s just the beginning. The entirety of this taut book focuses on a marriage – that of Maggie, who is suffering from PTSD as a result of a physical assault and her husband Mark, who, despite himself, is losing respect for her inability to solider through.
Mark is on the cusp of an affair; Maggie is having trouble functioning. Together, they take off from Chicago with their trusty dog Gerome, but by the time they hit Ohio they run into a severe storm. As they battle a situation that they have no control over – power outages and mounting rain and wind – the worst of the two of them come out – Mark’s perverse stubbornness, Maggie’s total fear of the unknown.
“Beached, marooned, abandoned, but also self-reliant. The natural accumulation of years together – years of contempt and content; disappointment and settlement…” In essence, Hannah Pittard’s description could apply to just about any long-time marriage when a couple inevitably hits an obstacle and forges through. As Maggie fights her instinctual fear of people and Mark fights his instinctual fear of impinging technology (he dislikes the anonymity of it), both need to see each other as a rock or oasis in an unsettling world.
Hannah Pittard is outstanding at creating an atmosphere of fear and disquiet, without manipulating the reader. As the characters surprise each other and themselves, there’s a note of hope that emerges.
That simple sentence is a set-up of many novels but in Hannah Pittard’s capable hands, it’s just the beginning. The entirety of this taut book focuses on a marriage – that of Maggie, who is suffering from PTSD as a result of a physical assault and her husband Mark, who, despite himself, is losing respect for her inability to solider through.
Mark is on the cusp of an affair; Maggie is having trouble functioning. Together, they take off from Chicago with their trusty dog Gerome, but by the time they hit Ohio they run into a severe storm. As they battle a situation that they have no control over – power outages and mounting rain and wind – the worst of the two of them come out – Mark’s perverse stubbornness, Maggie’s total fear of the unknown.
“Beached, marooned, abandoned, but also self-reliant. The natural accumulation of years together – years of contempt and content; disappointment and settlement…” In essence, Hannah Pittard’s description could apply to just about any long-time marriage when a couple inevitably hits an obstacle and forges through. As Maggie fights her instinctual fear of people and Mark fights his instinctual fear of impinging technology (he dislikes the anonymity of it), both need to see each other as a rock or oasis in an unsettling world.
Hannah Pittard is outstanding at creating an atmosphere of fear and disquiet, without manipulating the reader. As the characters surprise each other and themselves, there’s a note of hope that emerges.
July 18, 2016
I am so moved by this book. The most honest account of a marriage that I've read in years. The book is mostly inner dialogue, told between a husband and wife, while driving through a treacherous storm. Darkness, exhaustion, strange towns, big trucks, danger and shadows lurking behind every corner will keep you on your toes while you get to know these characters.
Anxiety, fear, hatred, anger, love and sustainability are themes in the book, yet the bottom line is a beautifully written, deeply moving intimate portrait of marriage.
This book is not one I will forget.
Anxiety, fear, hatred, anger, love and sustainability are themes in the book, yet the bottom line is a beautifully written, deeply moving intimate portrait of marriage.
This book is not one I will forget.
July 10, 2016
I've read a surprising amount of road trip books this year. I can barely think of any I've read in the past but so far I've tackled I'm Thinking of Ending Things and Binary Star, both of which I've adored. So when I heard the summary of Listen to Me (a modern gothic thriller roadtrip novel???) I was hooked. However, I think the marketing for this is SO misleading. It's the story of a rocky marriage, not a tense thriller.
Sure, there's quite a bit of tension. Maggie, the wife, was violently mugged recently and has grown paranoid about, well, everything. I really liked this aspect of the novel: it portrayed PTSD in a very realistic manner. It's not always full-on panic attacks and specific triggers. When you're attacked like this (muggings, assaults, rapes) the world loses its sense of safety. Suddenly things you trusted and took for granted have sinister angles. Everyone is a potential predator. Every street a potential incident. Maggie's paranoia may seem overdone but trust me, it's quite realistic and for me at least very sympathetic.
Her husband Mark, however, is just an asshole. It's hard to sympathies with his "oh my god my wife is so traumatized and that is very hard for ME because this is all obviously about MY COMFORT." I think he's supposed to be unlikeable, but it's hard to portray a broken marriage between two people who aren't on the same level. Like, you feel super bad for Maggie and hate Mark. You should either hate or love both of them, and the book seems a little uneven because of this.
Now, my real issue is the ending, which obviously I'm not going to spoil. But it was SUCH a letdown. There's this huge building of tension: Mark and Maggie are fighting, there's a huge storm in the distance, towns are losing power, even the dog is getting more and more anxious. But there's no huge event or climax. A thing happens, and poof, that's it. There's no resolution to the problems (or at least reasonable and believable resolution), there's no big thriller-y event. I was so let down.
If you like tense stories about relationships and don't expect a big reveal or climax, this might be a book for you. But domestic drama is usually not my forte and I wish this was marketed more towards its target audience. I think the ending is very fitting for the type of book it is, but not for the type of book readers expect it to be.
[arc provided by netgalley in exchange for an honest review]
Sure, there's quite a bit of tension. Maggie, the wife, was violently mugged recently and has grown paranoid about, well, everything. I really liked this aspect of the novel: it portrayed PTSD in a very realistic manner. It's not always full-on panic attacks and specific triggers. When you're attacked like this (muggings, assaults, rapes) the world loses its sense of safety. Suddenly things you trusted and took for granted have sinister angles. Everyone is a potential predator. Every street a potential incident. Maggie's paranoia may seem overdone but trust me, it's quite realistic and for me at least very sympathetic.
Her husband Mark, however, is just an asshole. It's hard to sympathies with his "oh my god my wife is so traumatized and that is very hard for ME because this is all obviously about MY COMFORT." I think he's supposed to be unlikeable, but it's hard to portray a broken marriage between two people who aren't on the same level. Like, you feel super bad for Maggie and hate Mark. You should either hate or love both of them, and the book seems a little uneven because of this.
Now, my real issue is the ending, which obviously I'm not going to spoil. But it was SUCH a letdown. There's this huge building of tension: Mark and Maggie are fighting, there's a huge storm in the distance, towns are losing power, even the dog is getting more and more anxious. But there's no huge event or climax. A thing happens, and poof, that's it. There's no resolution to the problems (or at least reasonable and believable resolution), there's no big thriller-y event. I was so let down.
If you like tense stories about relationships and don't expect a big reveal or climax, this might be a book for you. But domestic drama is usually not my forte and I wish this was marketed more towards its target audience. I think the ending is very fitting for the type of book it is, but not for the type of book readers expect it to be.
[arc provided by netgalley in exchange for an honest review]
July 16, 2016
Alas, another novel with husband-and-wife main characters, and they are both so un-likable that I couldn't care less what happens to them. In this case, you need characters to do stupid, illogical things in order to have a plot, but I was doing a lot of eye-rolling. They seemed too stupid and self-absorbed to make it through this road trip alive, lol.
I don't think I "got" out of this story what I was supposed to "get" by the "twist" ending, which was ineffective because I'm not sure what exactly happened as it was happening. The ending was not at all what I expected, after a long, tense build-up of ominous tone. SPOILER: In the aftermath internal discussions of the characters, I began to understand that the constant fear of the wife was supposed to have tainted the husband's misperception of a situation that led to a sad, tragic event. But, if these people weren't such horrendous communicators, it could have been avoided. This is not a book about fear, but one about people being really bad, lazy, selfish, childish, cowardly communicators and its worst-case consequences. Why is the husband such a chickenshit at heart, so much that he's paralyzed with indecision and incapable of responding to situations with clear communication to not allow them to escalate, why does he let his dog's insistence stop him from locking a door he wants to lock? Why does the wife LIE to her husband about cell phone service, pretending to look at an online map? What is with this wife's super deep-sleeping? Are these people grown-ups? Why is owning a weapon for self-protection an unnatural thing to these people? Huh? We're supposed to be alarmed along with the husband that the wife bought a little pocket knife or something on ebay in the wake of being mugged? We are to understand this is a "warning bell" or something? Okay, maybe it's just the husband-character is offended because he's the man supposed to protect his woman in his own deluded mind, but he doesn't own a knife, either. So how's he going to do that? These characters and their actions and rationales are unrealistic to me.
What passes the author's sniff test does not pass mine.
I don't think I "got" out of this story what I was supposed to "get" by the "twist" ending, which was ineffective because I'm not sure what exactly happened as it was happening. The ending was not at all what I expected, after a long, tense build-up of ominous tone. SPOILER: In the aftermath internal discussions of the characters, I began to understand that the constant fear of the wife was supposed to have tainted the husband's misperception of a situation that led to a sad, tragic event. But, if these people weren't such horrendous communicators, it could have been avoided. This is not a book about fear, but one about people being really bad, lazy, selfish, childish, cowardly communicators and its worst-case consequences. Why is the husband such a chickenshit at heart, so much that he's paralyzed with indecision and incapable of responding to situations with clear communication to not allow them to escalate, why does he let his dog's insistence stop him from locking a door he wants to lock? Why does the wife LIE to her husband about cell phone service, pretending to look at an online map? What is with this wife's super deep-sleeping? Are these people grown-ups? Why is owning a weapon for self-protection an unnatural thing to these people? Huh? We're supposed to be alarmed along with the husband that the wife bought a little pocket knife or something on ebay in the wake of being mugged? We are to understand this is a "warning bell" or something? Okay, maybe it's just the husband-character is offended because he's the man supposed to protect his woman in his own deluded mind, but he doesn't own a knife, either. So how's he going to do that? These characters and their actions and rationales are unrealistic to me.
What passes the author's sniff test does not pass mine.
April 22, 2019
I’m not quite sure what to make of this one! I was intrigued by the description but I didn’t feel like the description actually matched the story. I liked the idea of the story and I liked the writing but it just didn’t seem to take off.
September 2, 2016
Mark and Maggie are a fairly young married couple. It seems like they had a pretty good marriage until recently. Maggie was violently mugged just a few blocks from home several months back; of course, she was traumatized, but seemed to be moving past the worst of it. That is, until another young woman in the neighborhood was murdered, and the police stop by to show Maggie the crime scene photographs, obviously retraumatizing her all to heck. While understanding how that opened everything up again for his wife, Mark can't deal with her fixating on every little gory detail about every violent crime she scavenges the Internet news sites for daily.
He thinks it would be a good idea for them and their beloved dog Gerome to spend a few days at his parents', a day's drive away. The novel concerns that road trip.
Pittard creates an eerie atmosphere from the get-go; she dips the reader into Mark's and Maggie's consciousness, alternating chapter by chapter, and we certainly get both sides of the story when it comes to their troubled marriage. But - and I don't know how Pittard pulled this off so brilliantly - I felt a deepening sense of foreboding that I couldn't place. Was one of them going to harm or kill the other? Was this some kind of supernatural story? Were they being followed by a serial killer? What the heck was going on?
They soon run into an epic storm that adds an identifiable element of danger to the road trip. Both of them are freaked out, usually not at the same time, so you can always anchor yourself to the sane one at any given moment, while suspecting the other one is losing their mind or worse.
There's an extended scene where they have to grope their way in the dark that I will never forget; it pulled me down into my own muck, all of my nightmarish fears of the dark.
The novel ends, finally revealing its narrative hand, leaving little room for ambiguity about what had been going on all along. I didn't quite think the closure tied up all the loose ends that supported other readings of what had gone before, but no matter: this was an utterly compelling pageturner of a novel, beautifully written.
(I listened to it on audio with an amazing narrator, Xe Sands - I would highly recommend that way to experience it.)
He thinks it would be a good idea for them and their beloved dog Gerome to spend a few days at his parents', a day's drive away. The novel concerns that road trip.
Pittard creates an eerie atmosphere from the get-go; she dips the reader into Mark's and Maggie's consciousness, alternating chapter by chapter, and we certainly get both sides of the story when it comes to their troubled marriage. But - and I don't know how Pittard pulled this off so brilliantly - I felt a deepening sense of foreboding that I couldn't place. Was one of them going to harm or kill the other? Was this some kind of supernatural story? Were they being followed by a serial killer? What the heck was going on?
They soon run into an epic storm that adds an identifiable element of danger to the road trip. Both of them are freaked out, usually not at the same time, so you can always anchor yourself to the sane one at any given moment, while suspecting the other one is losing their mind or worse.
There's an extended scene where they have to grope their way in the dark that I will never forget; it pulled me down into my own muck, all of my nightmarish fears of the dark.
The novel ends, finally revealing its narrative hand, leaving little room for ambiguity about what had been going on all along. I didn't quite think the closure tied up all the loose ends that supported other readings of what had gone before, but no matter: this was an utterly compelling pageturner of a novel, beautifully written.
(I listened to it on audio with an amazing narrator, Xe Sands - I would highly recommend that way to experience it.)
August 2, 2020
I love everything Pittard writes, and for my money she's one of the most under-rated writers out there today. This story, like her others, feels very genuine, and like always her writing is simple and honest. I'm not sure why it has a low overall rating other than maybe it's different in scope and topic from her other books, it's a simple husband and wife story, or the quarreling between the couple feels too real for some readers. For me, this was another excellent book by an excellent writer.
August 1, 2016
The book is about a marriage at its break down/impasse/destruction for a myriad of reasons (fear, infidelity, tragic events) and yet it's also not. This couple over the span of a trip from Chicago to Virginia during a storm (natch) break apart and quarrel yet come back together near-instantly. Each sever is followed closely by a repair. I'm not quite sure what the point was in following them through all of this. Just like the storm they're riding through, it never feels like they're really in trouble, emotionally or physically. The setting seems rife for thriller territory--backroads of states devastated by a storm at night without power--and yet for all of the hints of terror, nothing comes of it. The only character I even cared about, the dog, turns into a convenient (and upsetting) plot device in the final chapters and for what? To continue moving these boring my-problems-are-only-in-my-head characters forward? No, thank you to this one.
ARC provided by NetGalley.
ARC provided by NetGalley.
June 21, 2017
As soon as I read the synopsis for this novel I was immediately intrigued. Sounded right up my ally. I enjoy creepy and eerie in my books and this sounded just like something I would I love. But, I didn't. Love it that is.
Neither of the main characters, married couple Maggie & Mark, are particularly likable. Gerome, their dog and travel companion is the only character I actually cared about. The entire book is basically them on a long car ride, during a storm, and the bickering between them. I thought for certain there would be some big explosive ending as the synopsis eluded to but the big explosive ending was merely a fizzle at best.
Neither of the main characters, married couple Maggie & Mark, are particularly likable. Gerome, their dog and travel companion is the only character I actually cared about. The entire book is basically them on a long car ride, during a storm, and the bickering between them. I thought for certain there would be some big explosive ending as the synopsis eluded to but the big explosive ending was merely a fizzle at best.
May 24, 2016
This short, compact novel examines the liminal space in a marriage between insular and vast—a troubled couple enclosed in a car, but driving on the endless roads at night during a multistate storm. Maggie and Mark, an educated, financially secure couple, are experiencing bumps in their seven-year marriage since Maggie survived a mugging nine months ago. The trauma caused her to emotionally retreat, and she spent large amounts of time trolling the Internet for disaster/attack stories. Just as she was healing, a woman down the street was attacked in a similar way, but killed, causing Maggie to relive the trauma and once again feel unsafe.
As the novel opens, they are embarking on their annual summer road trip from Chicago to Virginia, to Mark’s parents’ farm, heading to a secure place during dangerous weather, with their neurotic dog, Geronimo. (The dog provides some levity, the irony of Maggie, a veterinarian, owning a nervous dog.) The tense, interior atmosphere within the car juxtaposes the unending road and infinite stormy sky, as Maggie and Mark attempt to work out the dark stretches of psychic space between them.
During the drive, Maggie and Mark periodically withdraw into themselves, and subsequently the conversations with each other were often small steps toward or away; from formal to informal; blank looks; silences; trepidation. “It was like living with a stranger. Sometimes, just looking at her, it was like he didn’t recognize a single thing about his wife.” “Sometimes, since the mugging, Maggie thought they behaved like a couple who’d lost a child.”
They hadn’t always been so watchful with each other. At one time, their moods were natural and easy and they were on the same page. Currently, it was like a series of transactions, these implicit social contracts that drew them together or pulled them apart. “…a slow, sweet back-and-forth of trivial politesse and minor deference….The intimacy would return eventually…But first the quiet back-and-forth.” And, as the weather becomes more severe and they have to negotiate specific options—whether to find a motel or keep driving, or which road or highway to take—these seemingly banal decisions become heightened and momentous.
The mounting tension of their physical journey becomes equally chilling with their internal anxiety, and as the story progresses, the reader senses a close, creeping panic. Is it real, or imagined? Are they in danger from what lies outside, or just rattled by the teakettle whistle of the windows or the sonic bursts of thunder? Pittard keeps a steady pace with lean, sinewy prose and plenty of atmospherics. I read this in one lengthy sitting, unable to tear away from the crackling visual images of the weather and the haunting, invisible spaces between words.
I wouldn’t exactly call this Hitchcockian, as the blurb adverts, or a mystery, as it is categorized. It’s a niche book examining PTSD and its effect on relationships, as well as the vicissitudes of a marriage in the face of time and circumstance. It is literary rather than sensational, reflective more than action-oriented.
“It seems you’ve found the one. It’s in the cards. Your future; your doom.”
As the novel opens, they are embarking on their annual summer road trip from Chicago to Virginia, to Mark’s parents’ farm, heading to a secure place during dangerous weather, with their neurotic dog, Geronimo. (The dog provides some levity, the irony of Maggie, a veterinarian, owning a nervous dog.) The tense, interior atmosphere within the car juxtaposes the unending road and infinite stormy sky, as Maggie and Mark attempt to work out the dark stretches of psychic space between them.
During the drive, Maggie and Mark periodically withdraw into themselves, and subsequently the conversations with each other were often small steps toward or away; from formal to informal; blank looks; silences; trepidation. “It was like living with a stranger. Sometimes, just looking at her, it was like he didn’t recognize a single thing about his wife.” “Sometimes, since the mugging, Maggie thought they behaved like a couple who’d lost a child.”
They hadn’t always been so watchful with each other. At one time, their moods were natural and easy and they were on the same page. Currently, it was like a series of transactions, these implicit social contracts that drew them together or pulled them apart. “…a slow, sweet back-and-forth of trivial politesse and minor deference….The intimacy would return eventually…But first the quiet back-and-forth.” And, as the weather becomes more severe and they have to negotiate specific options—whether to find a motel or keep driving, or which road or highway to take—these seemingly banal decisions become heightened and momentous.
The mounting tension of their physical journey becomes equally chilling with their internal anxiety, and as the story progresses, the reader senses a close, creeping panic. Is it real, or imagined? Are they in danger from what lies outside, or just rattled by the teakettle whistle of the windows or the sonic bursts of thunder? Pittard keeps a steady pace with lean, sinewy prose and plenty of atmospherics. I read this in one lengthy sitting, unable to tear away from the crackling visual images of the weather and the haunting, invisible spaces between words.
I wouldn’t exactly call this Hitchcockian, as the blurb adverts, or a mystery, as it is categorized. It’s a niche book examining PTSD and its effect on relationships, as well as the vicissitudes of a marriage in the face of time and circumstance. It is literary rather than sensational, reflective more than action-oriented.
“It seems you’ve found the one. It’s in the cards. Your future; your doom.”
September 4, 2017
I liked the writing. I liked the way the author explained things. For example this particular scene from the book was scary. I don't know whether I'm allowed to mention it but still.
Awesome...👍🏻
It was a childish habit - checking under all the doors in a public washroom to make sure someone wasn't lurking - because what would Maggie do if she actually found someone? Scream? Fight back? Wilt? Yet she could never resist the urge.
In this particular bathroom, Maggie discovered only one pair of feet. They were at the far end of the glinty silver latrine, behind the final stall door, which was closed and, presumably, locked. And they were turned, these feet were, in the wrong direction - as if the person attached to them might be barfing or about to flush the toilet. …She was acutely aware of the sound coming from the only other compartment in use. Or, rather, she was aware of a lack of sound. Though she loathed in general the prospect of listening to another person pee (or worse), she was further loath to find herself in an enclosed space with someone who wasn't using it for its intended purpose…
Still squatting, Maggie bent over even farther and angled herself so that she could peek - her shorts around her knees - under the partition in the direction of the far toilet. Though there were several stalls between them, she could clearly make out the feet, which were now pointed firmly facing in Maggie's direction.
Awesome...👍🏻
June 24, 2016
The latest by Hannah Pittard packs a swift punch. The novel is lean and gets straight to the point. I read it in less than a day, and what a day to read it. The main character, Maggie, is terrified of the world (perhaps rightfully so) after being mugged, and then months later, a college student being killed due to a similar attack. Because of this, she is obsessed with all of the obsessively addicting dark corners of the internet and tales of true crime, convinced tragedy will befall her at any minute. Her husband, Mark, seems to not quite care, and wonders where the woman he married went. He is on the verge of an affair because of this, and though does not go through with it, both of these things hang over the couple’s heads as they head into a road trip from Chicago to the stormy mountains of Virginia.
The story, which takes place over 24 hours, moves at a fast pace, but is dark and foreboding. Told from alternating points of view, it is easy to wiggle yourself deep into this married couple’s relationship, and all of the emotional baggage they have brought with them. As they encounter storms and power outages, and as the passive aggression grows as the night wears on, you start to believe that Maggie may be right in worrying about everything. You can really feel you are on this journey with them, going back and forth between: are they ok, or not?
Who knows why Maggie descends into darkness after a close encounter. What was interesting about the book was how I can so easily understand getting obsessed with the internet, and technology, but in a way that only perpetuates fear about the state of the world, not in ways of trying to make yourself feel better about it. I admire Pittard for tackling this unique relationship hurdle and making it such a powerful story tool. I really enjoyed this book, as I did her previous two novels, and look forward to more from her.
NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review.
The story, which takes place over 24 hours, moves at a fast pace, but is dark and foreboding. Told from alternating points of view, it is easy to wiggle yourself deep into this married couple’s relationship, and all of the emotional baggage they have brought with them. As they encounter storms and power outages, and as the passive aggression grows as the night wears on, you start to believe that Maggie may be right in worrying about everything. You can really feel you are on this journey with them, going back and forth between: are they ok, or not?
Who knows why Maggie descends into darkness after a close encounter. What was interesting about the book was how I can so easily understand getting obsessed with the internet, and technology, but in a way that only perpetuates fear about the state of the world, not in ways of trying to make yourself feel better about it. I admire Pittard for tackling this unique relationship hurdle and making it such a powerful story tool. I really enjoyed this book, as I did her previous two novels, and look forward to more from her.
NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review.
August 8, 2016
“It was a matter of luck, life was. You could beg all you wanted for protection, you could pray or not pray to a god or to a devil, but what it all came down to was a simple game of chance.”
This taut little domestic novel about a middle-aged couple on a road trip is so ominous and disquieting that it almost reads like a horror story or a psychological thriller.
Tensions are especially high between Maggie and Mark as they set out for his parent’s house several states away. Months after being violently mugged, Maggie struggles with PTSD and continues to descend into the depths of paranoia and anxiety. Meanwhile, Mark secretly perceives this as weakness, and as he begins losing respect for his wife, finds himself on the cusp of having an affair.
Unfortunately, their road trip is doomed from the start, and it only worsens as a dangerous storm approaches and Maggie and Mark subsequently find themselves lost in rural West Virginia.
There’s a persistent sense of claustrophobia, isolation, paranoia, helplessness and dread that reflects not only the circumstances of their road trip, but their feelings toward each other. Maggie and Mark’s fears and misconceptions are put to the test as they attempt to make it through this ill-fated night.
If you enjoy domestic dramas, Listen to Me is a must-read. Pittard’s writing is full of stunning insights into human behavior and coupledom. Throughout, she maintains an omnipotent third-person voice that further illuminates the banal indifference of a universe in which good and bad things happen by chance, and without any reason at all.
This taut little domestic novel about a middle-aged couple on a road trip is so ominous and disquieting that it almost reads like a horror story or a psychological thriller.
Tensions are especially high between Maggie and Mark as they set out for his parent’s house several states away. Months after being violently mugged, Maggie struggles with PTSD and continues to descend into the depths of paranoia and anxiety. Meanwhile, Mark secretly perceives this as weakness, and as he begins losing respect for his wife, finds himself on the cusp of having an affair.
Unfortunately, their road trip is doomed from the start, and it only worsens as a dangerous storm approaches and Maggie and Mark subsequently find themselves lost in rural West Virginia.
There’s a persistent sense of claustrophobia, isolation, paranoia, helplessness and dread that reflects not only the circumstances of their road trip, but their feelings toward each other. Maggie and Mark’s fears and misconceptions are put to the test as they attempt to make it through this ill-fated night.
If you enjoy domestic dramas, Listen to Me is a must-read. Pittard’s writing is full of stunning insights into human behavior and coupledom. Throughout, she maintains an omnipotent third-person voice that further illuminates the banal indifference of a universe in which good and bad things happen by chance, and without any reason at all.
August 22, 2025
gross, mean-spirited, boring fearmongering
November 22, 2016
This is my first review simply due to the fact that I was waiting until I finished a book and could not live with myself until I expressed my thoughts on it. Well, that moment has arrived. Who would have thought it would be for a book I GENEROUSLY rated 1 star? If half stars were an option (which I have often wished they were, usually as a happy solution to the dilemma between a 3 and 4 star rating), I would have given this book a half star.
Wow. Disappointment is an understatement. As an avid book nerd and writer myself (sure, I'll flatter myself), I will not crap on any work of literature out of respect and understanding that everyone has their own vision. But that being said, this book seemed utterly pointless to me. I cannot fathom why it was written (or published). The author clearly had their reasons for producing such a story - but it's lost on me.
The whole novel read to me the way your least favorite chapter in another book might read. A premise somewhat crafted (with a few random and try hard paragraphs seemingly there only to let you know that the author is an intellectual thinker)....then a whole lot of nothing. Now I understand a slow burn section here and there helps with the pacing of a novel, but this whole book was literally one long and boring chapter. I kept waiting for something - anything - exciting or suspenseful or for the love of all that is holy INTERESTING to happen or be fully developed ... but it never did. Sure there were parts where I was (cruelly) misled into thinking something intriguing or eerie was waiting around the next corner. Or passages when the married couple actually embodied something similar to real, genuine married people, before returning to their flaky and inconsistently written characters. But in the end, I couldn't get past the overall nothingness that was this book.
SPOILER ....
And oh sweet baby Jesus - the depressing and completely (to me) unnecessary death of the dog as the "climax" or turning point of the story? Not good. And I'm not even a passionate dog lover. It was more of a "THAT was what I was waiting for?" moment. I have never felt more cheated by a book in my entire 29 years on this earth. I guess in order to reignite the spark in your marriage and overcome intense and crippling anxiety, not to mention extinguish your desire to cheat on your mentally unstable wife with a much younger female student, your beloved family dog just needs to abruptly die. Simple. Got it.
Maybe I should blame the summary on the inside cover and not the book or the author, but this is in no way, shape or form a book about "terrifying paranoia". The only thing terrifying was the fact that I continued reading with such enthusiasm in hopes that it would eventually get better.
Not to mention, the author was brutally and embarrassingly insulting to anyone who lives in, has travelled through, visited or has ever even heard about the existence of Ohio (and on a slightly less degrading scale, West Virginia). Apparently, as an Ohioan, I should thank my lucky stars that I can even read because, you know, I'm clearly an uneducated inbred. Authors words, not mine.
Wow. Disappointment is an understatement. As an avid book nerd and writer myself (sure, I'll flatter myself), I will not crap on any work of literature out of respect and understanding that everyone has their own vision. But that being said, this book seemed utterly pointless to me. I cannot fathom why it was written (or published). The author clearly had their reasons for producing such a story - but it's lost on me.
The whole novel read to me the way your least favorite chapter in another book might read. A premise somewhat crafted (with a few random and try hard paragraphs seemingly there only to let you know that the author is an intellectual thinker)....then a whole lot of nothing. Now I understand a slow burn section here and there helps with the pacing of a novel, but this whole book was literally one long and boring chapter. I kept waiting for something - anything - exciting or suspenseful or for the love of all that is holy INTERESTING to happen or be fully developed ... but it never did. Sure there were parts where I was (cruelly) misled into thinking something intriguing or eerie was waiting around the next corner. Or passages when the married couple actually embodied something similar to real, genuine married people, before returning to their flaky and inconsistently written characters. But in the end, I couldn't get past the overall nothingness that was this book.
SPOILER ....
And oh sweet baby Jesus - the depressing and completely (to me) unnecessary death of the dog as the "climax" or turning point of the story? Not good. And I'm not even a passionate dog lover. It was more of a "THAT was what I was waiting for?" moment. I have never felt more cheated by a book in my entire 29 years on this earth. I guess in order to reignite the spark in your marriage and overcome intense and crippling anxiety, not to mention extinguish your desire to cheat on your mentally unstable wife with a much younger female student, your beloved family dog just needs to abruptly die. Simple. Got it.
Maybe I should blame the summary on the inside cover and not the book or the author, but this is in no way, shape or form a book about "terrifying paranoia". The only thing terrifying was the fact that I continued reading with such enthusiasm in hopes that it would eventually get better.
Not to mention, the author was brutally and embarrassingly insulting to anyone who lives in, has travelled through, visited or has ever even heard about the existence of Ohio (and on a slightly less degrading scale, West Virginia). Apparently, as an Ohioan, I should thank my lucky stars that I can even read because, you know, I'm clearly an uneducated inbred. Authors words, not mine.
July 7, 2017
Hannah Pittard's latest, her third novel, is a very quick read with a straightforward story line. On the surface, this novel has many simple components. The setting takes places mostly in the car. There are primarily two characters: Mark and Maggie. Even the language seems toned back compared to Pittard's previous offerings—here sentences convey a simple meaning and are not dressed in the beauty indicative of Pittard's writing style.
Despite being wrapped in a thin layer, Listen to Me is heavier than is immediately evident. A seemingly endless road trip is the catalyst for much reflection by both protagonists. Philosophical questions are raised, particularly about fear, the need for fellowship, and the desensitization of our modern Internet culture. It's easy to rush through this book, walk away with a story about a couple, a floundering marriage, and a road trip; however, with a little care and rumination, one will notice the prickles of thought about their own deep-seated phobias.
For me, the end comes about too quickly. I'd like to have seen more resolution, a more gradual recognition of self-awareness and adaptation at the novel's turning point by the two characters. Aside from these final chapters, I felt the story was paced exceptionally well. Some readers may be hoping to get somewhere faster, but it is the story of a road trip, after all. It's only natural to ask, “are we there yet?,” and be content when the answer is a resounding no. Just sit back, enjoy the ride, and think not only about where you're going, but where you're coming from.
Despite being wrapped in a thin layer, Listen to Me is heavier than is immediately evident. A seemingly endless road trip is the catalyst for much reflection by both protagonists. Philosophical questions are raised, particularly about fear, the need for fellowship, and the desensitization of our modern Internet culture. It's easy to rush through this book, walk away with a story about a couple, a floundering marriage, and a road trip; however, with a little care and rumination, one will notice the prickles of thought about their own deep-seated phobias.
For me, the end comes about too quickly. I'd like to have seen more resolution, a more gradual recognition of self-awareness and adaptation at the novel's turning point by the two characters. Aside from these final chapters, I felt the story was paced exceptionally well. Some readers may be hoping to get somewhere faster, but it is the story of a road trip, after all. It's only natural to ask, “are we there yet?,” and be content when the answer is a resounding no. Just sit back, enjoy the ride, and think not only about where you're going, but where you're coming from.
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