Those Who Knew

by Idra Novey

Named a BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR by * NPR * Esquire * O, The Oprah Magazine * Real Simple * BBC * PopSugar * Bustle * Kirkus Reviews * Lit Hub“A gripping, astute, and deeply humane political thriller.” —The Boston Globe “Mesmerizing [and] uncannily prescient.”—Los Angeles TimesA taut, timely novel about what a powerful politician thinks he can get away with and the group of misfits who finally bring him down, from the award-winning author of Ways to Disappear.On an unnamed island country ten years after the collapse of a U.S.-supported regime, Lena suspects the powerful senator she was involved with back in her student activist days is taking advantage of a young woman who's been introducing him at rallies. When the young woman ends up dead, Lena revisits her own fraught history with the senator and the violent incident that ended their relationship.Why didn't Lena speak up then, and will her family's support of the former regime still impact her credibility? What if her hunch about this young woman's death is wrong?What follows is a riveting exploration of the cost of staying silent and the mixed rewards of speaking up in a profoundly divided country. Those Who Knew confirms Novey's place as an essential new voice in American fiction.

Genres: Fiction, Feminism, Audiobook, Novels, Science Fiction, Book Club, Politics

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 6, 2018

About the author

Idra Novey is the author of TAKE WHAT YOU NEED, a New York Times Notable Book of 2023 and one of The New Yorker's Best Books of the Year. The novel is set in the Allegheny Highlands of Appalachia where parts of her family have lived for over a century.

Her earlier novels include THOSE WHO KNEW and WAYS TO DISAPPEAR, a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize for First Fiction. She's written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Guardian. Her fiction and poetry have been translated into a dozen languages. Her new book of poems, SOON AND WHOLLY, will be published in 2024.

Reviews

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘How did she stay true to the voices in her head as they led her into the fire?’

Abuse of power comes in many forms and from many faces. It’s easy to recognize it in the actions of your opponents, but trickier to swallow when it is from those with whom you share an ideology. This becomes another of the many ways abusers keep their victims silent. Those Who Knew, the second novel from Idra Novey, opens with a possible murder of a young student activist at the hands of a popular up-and-coming politician “of the people” in an unnamed island nation still recovering from decades of a violent, authoritarian dictatorship financially backed by the United States. Lena, a former girlfriend of the young senator, was physically assaulted by him during her younger activists days and suspects foul play but quickly realizes how impractical speaking up may be. The novel, written in short, urgent chapters that steam full speed ahead into the psychological maelstrom of politics, art and activism, is a powerful message on the difficulties of speaking out against abuse while simultaneously acknowledging the necessity of punching up by speaking truth to power. This compact literary thriller delivers punch after punch through a playful narrative structure and large variety of voices as Novey makes us confront the difficulties of speaking out while accepting that monsters can lurk inside of any public hero, looks at the multitudes of ways victims are kept silent, and addresses the violent legacy of US foreign policy propping up dictatorships in Latin America.

Novey writes with a directness that is as engaging as it is cutting. A poet as well as a novelist and translator, Novey has exceptionally fluid prose and an ear for dialogue. The language wonderfully washes over the reader with insightful asides and graceful storytelling all while moving rapidly forward. While more psychologically insightful than plot-driven, the plot is still fast paced and full of twists. Each chapter is around two to three pages and readers will find themselves halfway through the novel before they realize they’ve been clenching their jaws and holding their breath as Novey continuously turns the screws of tension. The story unfolds through the experiences of a wide cast of characters, all with some proximity to Senator Victor M. Principal among them are Lena, the focal character, who dated him in college until he strangled her to the point of near death; Olga, her friend and the aging proprietor of a used bookstore named Seek the Sublime or Die (who stays afloat more from marijuana sales than books); Victor’s playwright brother Freddy who is writing a secret play about the unseemliness of his brother; and Christina, Victor’s fiance picked for political alliance and access to wealth and power.

Novey keeps the storytelling fresh by unveiling plot and exposition through interjections of news articles, scenes from Freddy’s play, and the bookstore ledger, all of which move the story forward without feeling like a gimmick or overly heavy handed. Kamila Shamsie employed a similar technique--perhaps even more effectively--using social media as a sort of Greek Chorus in her exquisite novel Home Fire, and these post-modernist approaches to narrative that show society interacting with the media and arts we encounter is an excellent examination of our times and political mechanisms. Ours is the era of Cambridge Analytica and surveillance capitalism imbreeding with standard corporate marketing and this interplay of narrative forms perfectly puts the finger of literature on the pulse of modern politics and society. Furthermore, Freddy’s reluctance to make his draft public since they speak out against his popular Senator brother serves both as an example of how those in power intimidate others into keeping quiet and mirrors the passages from the Olga chapters about how citizens would bury contraband books such as Marx during the dictatorship. It’s a bold statement on the power of the written word but also reflects that while the nation is free from authoritarianism, tyranny, it would seem, is still rampant.

‘Trauma made a kite of the mind and there was no telling what kind of wind might take hold of it.’

Trauma is hidden in the roots beneath every twist and turn of Novey’s powerful novel, from the personal to the national level. At no point is the reader allowed to forget about the political climate on the island, befittingly so as the terrors of the now-extinguished dictatorship have left scars on the whole of the populace. There are characters such as Lena who had their coming-of-age throwing molotovs at cop cars and then there is Olga who watched her lover executed by the State while they were in prison for political activism. Trauma is also weaponized by those in power to both shape their power and keep their enemies silent. Victor has risen in public consciousness through his history of resistance against the trauma of the old regime and his efforts towards a social justice forward political platform. His most prominent stance is free college tuition, which not only gives him a monopoly on the youth vote but also grants him access to their activist circles where he preys on Maria P., a college student he sleeps and inevitably throws in front of a bus in a fit of anger. This is not a whodunnit--his crimes are made plain in the opening few chapters though the motivations take a bit to process out--as much as it is a ‘what can be done about it?’ novel.

‘How could he be both of these men, Lena asks herself about a man she personally knows to be an abuser but watches become a public political idol. While Novey began writing this novel before the very necessary #MeToo movement took on momentum, its release during it makes her examinations all the more important to consider. Victor is on the right side of history, politically, for this nation yet he is also an abuser. His status as a public figure already makes speaking out against him difficult. Lena acknowledges it will be seen as attention grabbing, that people will try to invalidate her because she didn’t speak up before, or cast her as as ‘some bitter ex-girlfriend’. The final excuse is also embodies the way that misogyny and himpathy often lurk in many discreditations. ‘Wasn’t this one of the ways women unraveled,’ Lena considers:

‘they failed to marry at the expected age, they got lonelier, stuck on some ex-lover’s success while they remained trapped in one demoralizing position after another, their thoughts growing increasingly erratic and unhinged.’

The fact that she is not a public success like Victor will be thrown against her as the public often is drawn to power and supports them instead of showing class solidarity. However, the ultimate damnation in speaking out here is--considering the way ad hominem attacks are so prevalent in discourse--it means that outing Victor means undermining his political positions. His rivals will weaponize it against the whole progressive movement in which he plays a key role. While, yes, we must condemn the actions of members of our own political parties with the same fervor we do those of the opposition, it does raise the point of what it all entails.

Speaking out also has a nasty side-effect of drawing attention to the accuser's personal life as a way of silencing them by demonizing them as if this had any bearing on the truth. Lena’s family were right-wing industrialists who enjoyed prosperity and massive profits through their juice factories under the former, violent regime and the nation is primed for new faces to direct their anger at. ‘You know Victor will use your grandfather to discredit anything you claim,’ Olga warns her. Lena must acknowledge the state of public opinion and how speaking out will consequently destroy her own family. ‘People were tired of rehashing the same familiar cast of villains...they were hungry for other wealthy families who had yet to own up to their share of the blame.’ It is a difficult truth to swallow, and one of the many failsafes power systems have of keeping people quiet. Reader’s eager for a novel of swift justice and heroic public outcry should look elsewhere, as this novel takes on a heavy realism that looks at the crushing realities that keep the system churning onward. Justice might have to come later.

Not only does Novey keep the trauma or dictatorship forefront in the reader's mind, she reminds US readers of their complicity in such atrocities. The island nation is unnamed, allowing it to serve as an amalgamation for all the nations that faced the wrath of US foreign policy in the 70s and 80s. Like the Northerners who have now come to the newly democratic island for tourist purposes--such as the college-aged American students thrilled to purchase used copies of Marx from Olga who acquired them after the regime fell and people dug up all the contraband books buried in their gardens--Novey reminds readers that we are all tourists of sorts like these students by our taking thrills in political thrillers about such nations. A particularly powerful moment is when Oscar, the American tourist, wakes to the news of 9/11. The contrast of how it affects him and those on the island, such as Lena, is striking and he cannot fathom how it can be ‘as if it were any day at all in human history’ to people there. What is brilliantly done here, however, is that the novel subverts the typical US-centric gaze as the event is minor to the lives of those on the island. ‘If those people were dying anywhere but in your country,’ Lena confronts him when he is outraged she is going on eating breakfast as if it were any other day, ‘would you have cared if I went on eating your scone? I bet you wouldn’t.’ This may seem harsh, but, Lena wonders ‘if his parents stopped drinking their coffee for even one second when his government supplied the trucks that round up Olga and thousands of others. To shoot them down on the street.’ Novey illuminates a parallel between Victor’s public power and position suppressing the voices of his victims and the United States with foreign policy actions such as Operation Condor and implanting neoliberal dictatorship keeping left-wing movements silent in their graves to maintain power over oil and mining industries of South America.

Lena, a Marxist, is throughout the novel representative of many ways voices are politically silenced. Not the “I’m being silenced” whines of rich people said while they are a guest speaking on a national network but everyday people actually denied a voice and often murdered for trying to use it. Beyond Victor is her work in public schools and her wealthy family’s disdain for it. They disbelieve media reports on poor conditions due to lack of funding to be overhyped and that any argument from Lena will be dismissed as propagated or misled regardless of Lena’s authority on the subject. Lena visits these schools as her job, yet her family essentially tells her that what she is experiencing simply is not how things are. ‘Her aunts drew the unflattering conclusions about the island’s children that they wanted to draw anyways.’ This is gaslighting, pure and simple, and this refusal to engage in any critical examination for reasons of holding on to power serves only as an oppressive tactic for silencing opponents whose voices badly need to be heard. This is psychological warfare, and Lena is already victim to questioning her own reality due to stress.

What seems to possibly be magical realism of the murdered Maria’s clothing showing up in Lena’s possession might just actually be coincidence or Lena not noticing things before. Novey does well by not taking that plot thread anywhere and instead leaving the reader to question reality the way those who are targets of manipulation tend to do. It was a bit clunky and an awkward way to start the book but it works out alright. Novey keeps the reader in an uncomfortable position for much of this novel but stepping out of our comfort zones is a way we can grow and better understand.

This all may paint the novel as fairly bleak, but there is a hopeful side to it as well. What is particularly charming is the way the novel represents art and literature as a hopeful rebellion. Freddy's play, for instance, chronicles the truth about his brother in an abstract way to cut right to the heart of the matter. It is implied near the end, especially as Victor is unraveling and his career is in free-fall, that Freddy is shucking off the fear that is keeping his draft hidden. Even if he never produces the play, those pages can still be found and bear witness to the awful truths. This is also reflected in Olga, who keeps a diary of sorts in the store ledger where she talks to her now-executed lover, a woman only mentioned as S.. Olga gives a copy of Anna Ahkmatova poetry to a college girl, telling her if she can memorize a stanza of the poem Requiem that she can keep the book for free. This literary illusion brings a whole weight of history with it, as poets in Ahkmatova's circle during Soviet times would gather and recite each others poetry until every knew the verses by heart. The idea was that the authorities could burn the manuscripts or jail and kill the poet (such was the fate of Osip Mandelstam), but their words would live on in the hearts and minds of their friends. Remembering is a form of resistance, and the arts are a perfect canvas to place the memories of atrocities for people to know of them in the future. Art keeps the fire alive long after the bodies grow cold.

‘He wondered what it would take for there to be a true reckoning with the repressive roles men imposed on each other, a moment when acting despotic would finally be recognized as the weakness that it was.’

This novel is a bit on the bleak side, but this does not subtract from its power and importance. Even the hopeful moments near the end with Olga running for local government are acknowledged to likely be met with failure, but Novey also makes a point that noble failures slowly chip away at power structures and pave the way for the next person to make more progress. Those Who Knew packs a lot of necessary social commentary punch on a wide range of topics of power--Victor even gets involved in a political scandal involving industrial farming that is hurting the local ecosystem, which should draw the reader’s attention to issues of the Climate Crisis and the way misinformation and those in places of power try to silence the urgent need for reform--and the methods at which keeping checks on power are hindered. Fast paced, innovative and urgent, this book is an incredible statement on power structure and the way they are maintained at the expense of everyone else.

4 / 5

[Mackey]

Those Who Knew is one of the most timely, on point works of fiction for this era.

With the opening pages of Idra Novey’s sophomore novel, Those Who Knew, you will be hooked into the story of politics, intrigue, masculine abuse, secrets and lies.On an unnamed island, exactly one week after the death of a young woman is ruled “accidental,” Lena discovers in her purse a shirt that she is convinced belonged to the young woman, Maria. Her friend, bookshop/weed store owner, Olga tries to convince Lena that she only is imagining things. But Lena suspects the girl was pushed in front of the train by an up and coming Senator, Victor, with whom Lena once had a liaison and during which time Victor quite nearly killed Lena in a fit of rage. As the story progresses, we learn more of Victor and the machinations of his rise to power. We meet Victor’s brother, Freddie, a gay playwright, who also suspects Victor. The beginning of the book is filled with twists and turns and intrigue and is told from multiple points of view. One would think that it would get confusing or scrambled, however, the deft writing skills of Novey, smoothly transition from one person to the next, one thought to another beautifully.

The latter portion of the book reads differently from the first as the characters examine their past actions, what they have done; what they might have done differently and how those different actions might have affected a different outcome. It is here in which the beauty of the book resonates and the true talent of the author shines. I gladly would read this book multiple times over and again just to have the pleasure of reading the second half with its beautiful prose.

Those Who Knew is succinctly written and is, quite quick of a read and yet there is so much power and such a weighty message within so few pages that you will be left wondering how that could and also wanting more. Idra Novey is considered an “up and coming” American writer – I daresay that with Those Who Knew, she has arrived there already!

Thank you #Edelweiss, @VikingBooks, and @IdraNovey for my advanced copy of this book. Those Who Knew is available for pre-order now and will be published November 6, 2018.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I appreciated this novel's ambition and stylistic difficulty - the non-linear telling, the slipping identities, the political plot, the elision of place names and the setting in an unnamed Latin American-ish island nation - I can't say I actually liked the book. I actually don't understand what it was about, which is to say it was "about" many things but I have trouble integrating the ideas. So I'm surprised at the novel's recent publicity that seems to center on the "bad man" storyline - it has been called "the definitive #MeToo novel"? (I suspect the readers of that Entertainment Weekly article are going to find themselves bewildered when they attempt to read this.) For me it veered off in so many directions - tangents that were never explored and never quite cohered. It may be an issue of style - I recall being a little nonplussed while reading Novey's similarly stylized novel, Ways to Disappear, a couple years ago.

[Jennifer Croft · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most exhilarating novels I’ve read in ages. It’s an astonishingly perfect mosaic—intricate, gorgeous—on the topic of corruption, which feels both timely and timeless. It forms the most complete picture I’ve ever read of this subject, providing the reader with direct access into the minds of would-be revolutionaries, washed-up revolutionaries, those with good intentions and those without, those who’ve lost their way, sexy egomaniacs, blundering outsiders and many more. It’s a quick read that reverberates long after you put it down. It is BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN, with the deftness of a playwright, the sensitivity of a translator, the fine touch of a poet and the skill of a born storyteller:
“At the sight of Lena emerging from the bookstore, Oscar nearly dropped his biscuits. The day was not quite as stingy with its light today. A few sunbeams punctured the thinning clouds, which he hoped was the reason Lena was squinting so intently and not because she was debating whether to acknowledge him.”
“After her release from the valley’s rehab center, she had assumed that her stay with the newly returned Lena would last a few months, at most. Yet somehow a year had gone by as quiet and green as the fields of the valley and she was still playing grandma in the afternoons, still smoking with Lena in the evenings on the porch, watching the light sift through the trees. At breakfast, they took turns being the ornery one at the table. It was the rare morning now that Olga even considered a joint while still in bed. There was really no predicting where, or when, the least lonely years of one’s adult life might begin.”
“Oscar closed the door to his daughter’s room and crept toward the living room thinking of the tigers they’d seen the previous weekend at the zoo, the irrelevance of their stealth, moving toward nothing but the bars at the opposite end of their single-tree, seven-rock savannah. He always felt far freer in his first seconds creeping toward the sofa than he did when he reached it just to sprawl there, reading headlines on his phone like some animal slumbering with its eyes open.”
I couldn’t recommend this book highly enough. Packed with real wisdom and brutal honestly and heartwarming tenderness, THOSE WHO KNEW will no doubt prove the best American novel of 2018.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5, rounded up.

For much of Novey's sophomore novel, I was intrigued and reading quickly to find out how all the myriad and provocative plot threads would resolve themselves, interweave and form a cohesive whole. Unfortunately, the novel just ENDS with no resolution and without anything making much sense. Things which SEEMED to be important in the beginning (the sweater, the death of Maria P.) just fade away, as do most of the subsequent happenings. Perhaps that was the entire intention, that the world is so crazy that NOTHING makes sense, but I felt deeply cheated by the non-ending, which unfortunately drove this from a strong 4 rating during most of it, down to a 2.5 by the end.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Those Who Knew” is a meditation on the passive role people play in physical abuse and the abuse of power. Lena is the main character, and as a college student had a temporary affair with Victor, which ended when Victor nearly killed her. Lena remained silent and told no one. Victor moves on to become a Senator, and other mysterious deaths of women close to Victor’s political life make Lena pay more attention.

This is a timely novel in that our culture is allowing and encouraging the voices of victims to speak up. Author Idra Novey pens an intriguing story. I found the novel to be profound and I whole-heartedly recommend it.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a brilliant book of our now. Politics (plus figurative and literal political ghosts) connect (or ensnaring) the lives of an expertly rendered cast of characters. The result is as enraging as it is inspiring. Between this novel and WAYS TO DISAPPEAR, Idra is now one of my favorite contemporary writers.

[Kelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Idra Novey can write. Her prose is beautiful and she plays with stylistic elements to create a wholly unique reading experience. Unfortunately, I closed the cover on this nuanced work feeling somewhat confused. I got it...I think, but there was a lot going on, not all of which was clear to me. I blame me!
3 stars

[Nadia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I consider myself very, very lucky that I got to read an early copy of this highly anticipated book. I loved Ways to Disappear. Novey's second novel enchanted in a different way -- it made me ponder what we let people get away with and why. Political and poetic.

[Drew · Rating 5 out of 5]

5+ out of 5.
So very much my kind of novel. I loved what Novey did with the structure, dropping in scenes from plays and clippings from newspapers, and I loved the content of the novel itself: a propulsive look at toxic masculinity in politics, at American intervention in Latin America, at the scars we leave behind us that we might not even be conscious of...
And the writing, my god. It's playful even as it is serious, and the book practically dances along (perhaps due to the short chapter lengths). I never wanted to put it down.

[Charlie Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me begin with my ending: Idra Novey's Those Who Knew is beautiful, classically shaped, compulsively readable, an all too relevant exploration of the moral and ethical conundrums of our troubled times, as lavishly wrought as poetry, rendered in sensational, moving prose, a page-turner-work-of-art, layered, like prescient pentimento. Get your hands on a copy of Those Who Knew as soon as you can, move it to the top of your TBR pile, and glory in it. And be warned, you'll find yourself re-reading and underlining and discovering new colors and richnesses every time.

I don't want to bury the lede in a gushing paean about the genius of Idra Novey and the compelling, convulsive brilliance of Those Who Knew, so I'll start by saying this is a novel that tears into the scariest, most alarming layers of the post-November-2016 Zeitgeist using provocatively imaginative plotting told in gloriously structured prose and form, somehow shaping a story in the classic style while making it, too, as current and titillating and terrifying as the improbable nightmare reality show hell that is now masquerading as "real life" as limned by the nightly news.

Long/short --- or, rather, short before I get to the long: No matter what kind of reader you are --- lover of literary fiction, fan of fast-paced thriller/mysteries, poetry, current events --- Idra Novey effortlessly packs them all into less than 250 artfully composed pages, fulfilling the promise of her first novel, Ways to Disappear, proving herself to be one of our most gifted and essential writers.


"Precisely a week after the death of Maria P. was declared an accident, a woman reached into her tote bag and found a sweater inside that didn't belong to her."


Thus begins the novel, Lena finds this sweater, and is unable to shed it:


"And then, perhaps because she had once risked her life in a similar garment and still regarded that time as the pivotal aspect of who she was, she lifted the sweater over her head and pulled it on."


Lena doesn't want to be burdened by the sweater nor by what she suspects is the truth about Maria P.'s death, but like a tattoo on the soul, Lena knows she can't erase what she knows or what that knowing and her past have made of her, and so, she puts the sweater on.

Most people know there is a credibility gap between the people we wish to be (or wish to appear to be) and the truth of who we are, and in the current toxically divisive environment, the magnitude of that gap we've come to expect and accept as normal has grown catastrophically, monstrously vast.

Idra Novey's new novel, Those Who Knew [click here for website], is a profoundly insightful and richly, intricately tessellated exploration about how we rationalize sins of compromise and silence, excuse our own complicity in the undermining of the social contract and civility, and how, by doing so, we tacitly sanction continued corruption and crime committed by those in power who exploit, abuse, and calculatedly oppress and demonize those members of society already marginalized and disadvantaged by gender identity, race, socio-economic stratum, sexual identity, and other class-identifiers.

But Those Who Knew isn't an exercise in polemical hyperbole; it's a reasoned, all-too-believable glimpse into the lives, minds, and relationship dynamics of those in power who abuse that power, and those others on the periphery or outside who are afraid to, unwilling to, or unable to stop the rot. Too, the novel explores those ways in which people become complicit in the spread of the immorality epidemic, committing or allowing repugnant acts and behavior and excusing them by citing the greater good, which, all too often, means "benefit and enrichment for me and those like me."

Lena's discovery of the sweater --- which looks just like one worn in newspaper photos by Maria P. whose death we learned in the novel's first paragraph was declared accidental --- seems to Lena a message from the dead girl who had worked with Victor, a senator and champion of liberal causes who, as a young activist, had been involved with Lena and in a rage, violently assaulted her. She had a sweater, then, much like the one of Maria P.'s which somehow has shown up in her bag.

We follow Lena's struggle with what to reveal of what she knows, how to determine what is knowledge and what is intuition or suspicion, and how to navigate those spaces between is and might be, truth and spin, day-to-day practical reality and wished-for Utopia, and what is her responsibility in these matters?

Lena, now a university instructor, confides in Olga, a former revolutionary who witnessed the torture of her fellow-revolutionary lover, S, to whom she now writes daily journals while she operates a bookstore dealing in the used volumes that were buried --- literally and figuratively --- during Olga's revolutionary years when rule of this un-named country was hijacked by a dictatorial/fascist sort, Cato. And, quietly, Olga also deals pot from the bookstore, a structure without running water, no internet, and spotty phone coverage:


"Hold on, Olga said into her cordless phone, I can't hear you. I'm back in Poetry. Her reception was far better up in Conspiracy, near the front windows. She could hear clearly enough at the register, too, where she rang up the occasional book --- and, yes, also sold a formidable amount of weed."


That passage contains a multitude of carefully shaped impressions, its language evocative of a mood, a place, a person absolutely specific, and its concluding few words: "...sold a formidable amount of weed." in juxtaposition with the earlier "...rang up the occasional book" --- are so stunningly right.

Idra Novey writes with the precision and care of a poet, able in a few carefully chosen words to convey what would take others (witness me spending 900 words already and not yet adequately explaining how fantastic this book is) many, many paragraphs if they ever managed to achieve it. She combines efficiency and specificity with a luxuriance of language and imagery so well, it very nearly qualifies as sorcery.

Olga is wary of Lena standing up to Victor, fearing the consequences. Meanwhile, Victor is contriving a marriage with Cristina, the daughter of a power broker in his political party in order to distract from his connection to the dead girl, but besides Lena, Victor's own brother, Freddy, a gay playwright, has his own suspicions about Victor's culpability. And from this cast of characters (and others added along the way) radiates a web of connections, complications, conspiracies of silence, deceits for reasons both good and not so good, and a labyrinth of loves, connections, relationships, resentments, desires, plots, grudges, and all the stuff of human interaction in a complicated society in a difficult age.

But, again, I've failed to convey the gift Idra Novey has for fashioning a remarkably compelling read, inside of which is a richness of metaphor, parallels, and extraordinary language.

Pages 29 and 30 are a short section in which Victor escapes to a place where he feels safe, unencumbered, the docks, where real men shout at one another as they operate heavy machinery. Only, this day, the docks are full of "people who didn't belong there. Women and teenagers.Doddering old men with binoculars." He's informed the crowds have been attracted by a pair of whales, mating. The man who tells him this has an eye that doesn't focus correctly, Victor is not up to dealing with "peculiar faces right now" and "no [expletive] whales." And from that beginning develops a blossoming of images; a group of teenage boys eating chocolate bars (a giant one of which makes an appearance in one of his brother's plays) and talking about "whale boners" and the self-revulsion this wakens in Victor, and the way it reminds him of his brother to whom "it had been excruciating to stiffen and deny [Freddy] an answer, to will a growing distance...", and much later in the novel Victor will end up on Freddy's couch, hiding an erection, and again travel to the docks, looking for escape but once more disturbed by those who he believes don't belong, and he'll respond in a way disastrous, in an echo and expansion of this early scene, this two tight pages in which language repeats and escalates and doubles back on itself, full of whispers and hints of that which is below the surface.

Like I said at the start, Idra Novey's writing is beautiful, classically shaped, compulsively readable, an all too relevant exploration of the moral and ethical conundrums of our troubled times, as lavishly wrought as poetry, rendered in sensational, moving prose, a page-turner-work-of-art, layered, like prescient pentimento. Get your hands on a copy of Those Who Knew as soon as you can, move it to the top of your TBR pile, and glory in it. And be warned, you'll find yourself re-reading and underlining and discovering new colors and richnesses every time.

[Tina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Subtle and smart. It's like a watercolor of a book, not totally clear.

[Robert Blumenthal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another winner from Idra Novey, whose first novel, Ways to Disappear was another fine effort. In this novel, which takes place in an unnamed Island in the Western Hemisphere as well as an unnamed city in the dominant country in the north (obviously New York). It follows Lena, who worked with a progressive senator who had a habit of coming on a bit strong to young women and may have murdered one of them.

Lena ends up pregnant with the child of a very blond northerner, and she has kept their son a secret from him. There are also some associated characters: the gay playwright brother of the senator, an older woman named Olga who runs a bookstore and sells pot, and various girlfriends and wives of the senator. The chapters are very short and skip around amongst this cast of characters.

The plot is not the main driver of this novel, though it isn't insignificant either. Whether the senator murdered the young Maria P. or not is a driving narrative theme throughout the novel, though this is definitely not a thriller or murder mystery. It is more of a look at the politics of our time--I found various allusions to our own ridiculous political situation. There's a lot of class conflict and issues of inequality and injustice on the unnamed island and how difficult it is to find a solution, especially finding a political figure that the people can trust. There are disappearances and purges of anti-government and the description of a Pinochet type government on the island.

An interesting technique added to the mix is segments of a play being written by the senator's gay brother that deals with the senator's potential murder of Maria P., as well as issues in his and his brother's upbringing and their relationship with their father. It's a fairly breezy read and despite the skipping around, pretty easy to follow. It is very intelligently written, but probably not for all tastes.

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 1 out of 5]

Recommended for fans of: Before She Sleeps

And there’s more, Freddy had murmured, even more brutal.

I don’t know anyone on this island, Alex had replied, who isn’t one degree removed from more brutality than they can bear to admit.

If you loved the dreariness of Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Children of Men, and you don't mind a complete lack of quotation marks (why, authors? WHY????), then you must read this book.

I'll be honest, by page 10, I was really annoyed by the lack of quotation marks, like MurderBot-Level-90 annoyed. But that's me. I soldiered on, without joy.

The lack of punctuation makes it seem distant, less immediate, like it's just someone telling you a sketchy story. It's just vague and depressing and lacking in punctuation. I probably would have had an entirely different reaction to this book if it had been punctuated in the traditional fashion. Maybe it's a shame I didn't choose an audiobook format for it. But I didn't, I read it with my eyes, and I was not pleased.

Set on an un-named island country somewhere south of the US, this isn't a dystopian, nor is it a near-future story, it's more of an imaginary, alternate present: an alternate present in which this possible-Cuba / possible-Haiti / possible Dominican Republic exists. Maybe it's not alternate at all, maybe this is based on a specific place and time. The story starts some years before 2001 and ends some years after 2001, and in the middle is the un-named 9/11 attack on the un-named World Trade Center in un-named NYC. Novey is apparently fond of not actually naming places and things.

There is a suggestion of magical realism, but it is left to the reader to decide if these things are truly happening or just in the characters' imaginations.

The book is mercifully short, so while I strongly disliked it, at least I didn't lose too many hours of my life while reading it.

[ᒪᗴᗩᕼ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only had about a quarter of this Audiobook yet to listen too...and realized I wasn't really paying attention to it anymore and didn't care...not one bit, where it was going. So I stopped my self-imposed torture. Since I only gave this a try, in the first place, because it fulfilled a reading challenge, anyway.

Overall, I think it was a little too smartly written for me...or it was just too confusing. Actually, I think know it's both these factors. I also have no clue if this is a dystopian future (because some call it that) or an alternate reality...I kind of think it's some of each or maybe neither. I would mostly categorize this as weird, and also, not my cuppa. But seriously, it's obviously well liked by many...so don't necessarily take my word for it.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book started off strong: great hook, great world building. I was intrigued and couldn’t put it down. But the more I read, the more I became disengaged. For me, the characters were flat and the plot was anticlimactic.

Overall, this was an okay read. If you like postapocalyptic or dystopian novels, you may want to check this out.

[AMANDA · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had a unique and ambitious idea behind it, but many of the style choices the author made kept me from fully engaging with it and in the end I didn't really like this as much as I thought I would.

One of my ultimate book pet peeves is present throughout the book - that being the lack of quotation marks during dialogue. I've said it in the past (probably multiple times) that the absence of quotations really pulls me out of a book because it makes the flow of reading it feel jerky any time I have to re-read a line to correct its tone once I realize I'm reading dialogue and not description/narrative. Additionally, as a whole, the book is way too vague without any payoff. I'm not against ambiguous settings or plots, in fact some of the books I've really liked in the past have had some really beautifully obscure elements about them. But in this instance, I felt like the fact that everything about the story being so vague - from its plot, its setting, the characters and what they were going through - ultimately made it too empty to be as clever and as "timely" as I think the author wanted it to be. And by the time I passed the halfway point, I realized I really couldn't get a hold of the characters and just how tedious the book had become to read.

I would have DNF'd it, but because it was such a short book to begin with I decided to just stick with it. I feel like I wasted my time though.

[Denise]

"People are too desperate for a hero."

Lena, a college student from a wealthy island family, turns activist and gets involved with the charismatic future senator, Victor, and has a fling with him while they are planning and organizing demonstrations in support of reduced tuition for the islanders. The people who live on this unnamed island have barely recovered from atrocities committed against them while under a fascist regime supported and financed by the North (the USA?) Victor is a rising political star but is given to bouts of tremendous rage and in one of those episodes, he assaults and nearly strangles Lena. She doesn't report it and when, several years later, it appears that Victor may have killed a young woman, Lena wants him held accountable. The people she tells about her assault believe her and agree that someone needs to confront Victor about Maria P. What follows is a twisty narrative, interspersed with diary entries and screen play notes that flips back and forth in point of view, in time and place. Will Victor be outed and get his just due? NO SPOILERS.

I'm not quite sure what I think about this book. Was it interesting? Yes, enough to hold my interest though I definitely did not like the writing style and I was especially put off by the screen play segments. Did the novel have anything new or original to impart? Not really -- you'd have to be living under a rock in the desert for a thousand years not to know that male politicians get away with murder and all sorts of other tawdry and despicable crimes. The urge for revenge or to hold that person responsible is tremendous and not often successful. I think the setting and the characters are meant to make us believe that even the least well-placed among us (misfits?) can bring some sort of justice for those harmed and that staying silent is not ever the best response despite the outcry and response that is likely to occur.

The characters were an interesting conglomerate of Islanders and outsiders and each had a part to play in telling the story but I really couldn't identify with any of them. I'm not sure that leaving so much "unnamed" was for the best as I found it hard to relate and to really buy in to the drama in some respects. Perhaps it was to avoid stereotyping or labeling but you will find all sorts of diversity within. The book was engaging enough that I read it in a single sitting and took awhile to digest it all before trying to put my thoughts and reactions into a review. It's definitely outside my usual genre and was not exactly what I was expecting from just reading the synopsis.

Thank you to NetGalley and Viking for the e-book ARC to read and review.

[Tristan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of the articles written about this book mention the #MeToo movement. While I see the connection, I don't think this book is just about that. The book takes on a lot more including U.S. relations with despotic leaders, government corruption, and relationships in general.

I particularly enjoyed the interactions of Oscar and Lena when they are reunited years later. We've all wondered if things could have ended differently in a previous relationship. We all try and look back and see if there was one particular thing that caused the relationship to fail. Here, the parties can easily identify the moment when their budding relationship came to an end. But for the way they each reacted to the news of 9/11, their relationship might have survived and their child would have known his father. Novey's exploration of that concept was well done.

The book changes form frequently. Most of the book is standard chapters, but varying the characters perspective. Some chapters take the form of a script for a play being written by one character. I expected to hate those chapters, they ended up being some of my favorites.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5. Would have been a solid 5, but Novey choose not to use quotation marks for the dialogue. I hate this decision, but it didn't make this book unreadable as it does some others.

I wrote Ms. Novey to ask about her decision to not use quotation marks. I understand and respect her decision based on her response. She let me know that authors in Spanish and Portuguese don't use quotation marks. Her work as a translator shaped her approach to writing and make her most comfortable not using quotation marks. She said "The subtlety of integrating the dialogue without quotation marks has come to feel natural after translating many works of fiction written that way in Spanish and Portuguese. I know many readers in English find that choice unnecessarily confusing and frustrating. With all choices that are a matter of taste and familiarity, there is no way to please everyone and as an author, to write freely, it's essential to remain true to what feels most natural to you."

[Emms-hiatus(ish) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could have been amazing. Wasn't.

[Kamryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had no clue what was going on at any point in this, but apparently it was entertaining enough for me to finish?

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning political thriller. Comments shortly.

[Anita Lynch-Cooper · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tried to read this, but just didn't care.

[Corey Preston · Rating 5 out of 5]

The very best kind of fiction, to my mind, subtly reminds, and expands the notion of, what fiction can do.
This fine book is the best kind of fiction. It also happens to be propulsive, painful and deeply human, which is pretty great too.
Thanks AIP.

[Candice Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely LOVED this book and was so incredibly glad one of my book clubs chose this as their January pick. This book is completely ideal if you are looking for fuel to light an intense debate between readers.

I 100% appreciate the remarkable unique structure and voice behind this book. Idra Novey has a very specific voice and this book is still echoing through my head. The work done to create very ambiguous, complex characters is second to none in this particular story. I don't think there was one single character who didn't have a very realistic mix of good and bad to them, and that made all the characters very real (and in some cases, relatable) to me. I ended up in lengthy debates about many of the characters, but most certainly Lena and Victor who were very much living in the grey area in my opinion.

I also loved how absolutely relevant this story is in the current political and #metoo climate. This story resonates as it feels like something that we are seeing happen over and over again in the media, and I appreciated so much how this story stayed true to the messiness of real life, and didn't offer quick easy solutions to problems, or Hollywood endings.

While there were bits and pieces to this story that I wish had been wrapped up slightly better (the ghost of Maria P. for one), those are small and immaterial to how much I enjoyed this particular book overall. One that won't be for every reader, but that is going to be one of my favorite books of the year without doubt.

[Eileen Pollack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stayed up way past my bedtime finishing Idra Novey's Those Who Knew. This is the best novel I've read since I finished Elena Ferrante's amazing Neapolitan series. Here we have the same jagged, brilliant, wise writing, the same deeply felt relationships among female characters of all social classes, the same focus on the way powerful male politicians can browbeat, even terrorize, even the smartest, feistiest women ... We get women as lovers, mothers, business owners, political activists ... And yet, the style is Novey's own. The fractured structure works beautifully, allowing us to get everyone's point of view (always interesting how men like Victor see themselves!). Very highly recommended.

[Caroline Hagood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Idra Novey started her writing career as a poet, and she brings this lyrical sensibility to her two novels, the 2016 Ways to Disappear and her new book, out next week, Those Who Knew. She’s also an accomplished translator of a number of pivotal Brazilian works, including Clarice Lispector’s The Passion According to G.H.

Perhaps as a result of her movements between various linguistic spheres—whether it be poetry and prose or actual different languages—Novey’s novels telegraph the sensation of moving back and forth between different mental landscapes.

[Hilary Reyl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could not put this book down. It's an intimate political thriller with a propulsive plot. The writing is very taut - not a wasted word. Yet the characters and story feel very deep and fleshed out, so a reader does not have the unsatisfied feeling that can sometimes come from a sparely written book. It's moving and beautiful, a very emotional read. The writing is poetic, but never overwrought, and the poetry is always in service of a great story. Highly recommended!

[Daphne]

I'm really impressed by this author and the light touch she brings to heavy topics (political corruption, male domination, violence against women). The extremely short chapters allow her to shift easily between the multiple points of view, so that we get a multifaceted view of a carefully plotted story that culminates with satisfying surprises that stop short of feeling pat. I'm excited to read Novey's first novel now.

[Jamise · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars Meh, didn’t do anything for me. This is my second novel by this author and once again I say if you’re looking for an amazing climatic plot, this is not the book. The premise was good but I felt like it fell flat. She has a nice writing style but at times I felt that it was all over the place.