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Payback: A Novel
A novel of lifelong reckoning between two women by the award-winning, beloved author.
Unbeknownst to her many fans, Quin Archer, the revenge-loving queen of the reality-TV show "Payback," was once an angry teen named Heidi--and her true story may be known only to Agnes, who was her art teacher at a private New England girls' school in the 1970s. Then a young woman herself, Agnes saw a spark of originality in the brooding Heidi. But when she suggests Heidi visit the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the girl returns with a disastrous account of having been picked up at the museum by an older man. Agnes's stunned, victim-blaming response will haunt both women for decades. Gordon narrates this tale of #metoo misunderstanding, from a time before there was language to contain it, with a sharp sense of life's changing tempo, carrying us through Heidi's disappearance and reinvention as Quin, and Agnes's escape into career and family in Italy--until, inevitably, they meet again. A remarkable book about the precise weight of our words and deeds, from a writer whose moral vision is deeply rewarding in its subtlety.
Unbeknownst to her many fans, Quin Archer, the revenge-loving queen of the reality-TV show "Payback," was once an angry teen named Heidi--and her true story may be known only to Agnes, who was her art teacher at a private New England girls' school in the 1970s. Then a young woman herself, Agnes saw a spark of originality in the brooding Heidi. But when she suggests Heidi visit the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the girl returns with a disastrous account of having been picked up at the museum by an older man. Agnes's stunned, victim-blaming response will haunt both women for decades. Gordon narrates this tale of #metoo misunderstanding, from a time before there was language to contain it, with a sharp sense of life's changing tempo, carrying us through Heidi's disappearance and reinvention as Quin, and Agnes's escape into career and family in Italy--until, inevitably, they meet again. A remarkable book about the precise weight of our words and deeds, from a writer whose moral vision is deeply rewarding in its subtlety.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published September 15, 2020
96 people are currently reading
767 people want to read
About the author
Mary Gordon
102 books158 followersMary Catherine Gordon is an American writer from Queens and Valley Stream, New York. She is the McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard College. She is best known for her novels, memoirs and literary criticism. In 2008, she was named Official State Author of New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 83 reviews
June 10, 2020
A novel about one act of betrayal and how it plays out over two women's lives.
I enjoyed this, but found it uneven. With two characters like this, especially when they are so different, it should be more balanced and here the author's sympathies so clearly lay with one woman (who was already the more sympathetic one) that I found myself wishing for more about the other even though I didn't like her at all.
But most of all I wanted this to be shorter, tighter, and more focused. The book kept relaxing and expanding and pulling us away from our central story, and I kept finding myself starting to skim and wanting to get back to the interesting stuff.
Note: includes rape on the page, miscarriage.
I enjoyed this, but found it uneven. With two characters like this, especially when they are so different, it should be more balanced and here the author's sympathies so clearly lay with one woman (who was already the more sympathetic one) that I found myself wishing for more about the other even though I didn't like her at all.
But most of all I wanted this to be shorter, tighter, and more focused. The book kept relaxing and expanding and pulling us away from our central story, and I kept finding myself starting to skim and wanting to get back to the interesting stuff.
Note: includes rape on the page, miscarriage.
October 7, 2020
Ugggg, way too much hand wringing, self loathing and excema producing repentance for a careless reaction....and way too much vindictiveness. It overtook the entire book, which had some great characters.
Did the author really have to bring politics into it, the “I’m ashamed of America and our president” type of politics?
Can’t believe this book was recommended by the New York Times, but then there is a definite liberal viewpoint throughout.
Did the author really have to bring politics into it, the “I’m ashamed of America and our president” type of politics?
Can’t believe this book was recommended by the New York Times, but then there is a definite liberal viewpoint throughout.
October 9, 2020
I really like Mary Gordon and have read most of her books. In reviewing this book in the September 14, 2020 edition of the The New York Times Book Review, Francine Prose succinctly and accurately described the themes that occur again and again in Gordon's books, including this book:
"[M]ary Gordon isn’t, strictly speaking, a naturalistic or realistic novelist, but rather a moralist, by which I don’t mean moralistic. Since her marvelous first novel, “Final Payments” (1978), she’s concerned herself with questions of ethics, belief, responsibility, devotion, obligation. What do human beings owe one another and how can we know what is the right thing to do? How are we to love the ungrateful, deluded and ill-tempered who cannot return our love? Who is the victim, who is the victimizer, and how easily are those roles reversed? In “Men and Angels” (1985) two women discuss the possibility of living a moral life when one must make the compromises required by motherhood, a question that reappears in “Payback.” In “Pearl” (2005) a young woman who’d been involved with the I.R.A. chains herself to the flagpole at the American Embassy in Dublin, not for political but for ethical reasons."
At her best, Mary Gordon is original, incisive, perceptive, and profound. Unfortunately, all too often, she can be preachy.
This book is much too long, because Gordon departs from narrating a story and devolves into preaching over and over again! The book would have been better if it had been 100 pages shorter with less preaching and more focus on the plot!
But, overall, I enjoyed the book. The plot and characters were interesting, and Gordon can still write beautifully and insightfully.
"[M]ary Gordon isn’t, strictly speaking, a naturalistic or realistic novelist, but rather a moralist, by which I don’t mean moralistic. Since her marvelous first novel, “Final Payments” (1978), she’s concerned herself with questions of ethics, belief, responsibility, devotion, obligation. What do human beings owe one another and how can we know what is the right thing to do? How are we to love the ungrateful, deluded and ill-tempered who cannot return our love? Who is the victim, who is the victimizer, and how easily are those roles reversed? In “Men and Angels” (1985) two women discuss the possibility of living a moral life when one must make the compromises required by motherhood, a question that reappears in “Payback.” In “Pearl” (2005) a young woman who’d been involved with the I.R.A. chains herself to the flagpole at the American Embassy in Dublin, not for political but for ethical reasons."
At her best, Mary Gordon is original, incisive, perceptive, and profound. Unfortunately, all too often, she can be preachy.
This book is much too long, because Gordon departs from narrating a story and devolves into preaching over and over again! The book would have been better if it had been 100 pages shorter with less preaching and more focus on the plot!
But, overall, I enjoyed the book. The plot and characters were interesting, and Gordon can still write beautifully and insightfully.
May 22, 2020
I loved some of this book but I found parts of it over-written and too dense. This is the story of two women, which began with the belief that a teacher could make up for the wrongs in a pupils’ life. These efforts and the trauma they unleashed haunted both women for the rest of their lives.
Agnes was a young and idealistic teacher in a Tony private school. It is there that she give special attention to the unloved and unlovable Heidi Stolz. It is under her guidance that Heidi takes a trip to NYC, is seduced and raped. Agnes reacts in a way that sends Heidi off, more miserable than ever, to run away.
On some level, Agnes runs away as well, and moves to Italy. Despite her successful and fulfilling life she is haunted by her words to Heidi. The book leads to a moment when Heidi has her opportunity for PAYBACK.
Although I enjoyed the storyline, I found some parts too long and boring. The minutiae about art restoration didn’t interest me. I loved the story and the main characters, but I found it hard to plow through parts of the middle which were about her craft.
As always, Gordon writes exquisitely, but I wish there was a little less of it.
Thank you Netgalley for this opportunity.
Agnes was a young and idealistic teacher in a Tony private school. It is there that she give special attention to the unloved and unlovable Heidi Stolz. It is under her guidance that Heidi takes a trip to NYC, is seduced and raped. Agnes reacts in a way that sends Heidi off, more miserable than ever, to run away.
On some level, Agnes runs away as well, and moves to Italy. Despite her successful and fulfilling life she is haunted by her words to Heidi. The book leads to a moment when Heidi has her opportunity for PAYBACK.
Although I enjoyed the storyline, I found some parts too long and boring. The minutiae about art restoration didn’t interest me. I loved the story and the main characters, but I found it hard to plow through parts of the middle which were about her craft.
As always, Gordon writes exquisitely, but I wish there was a little less of it.
Thank you Netgalley for this opportunity.
September 7, 2020
Meh. Like Gordon's earlier work better, but not a horrible story of guilt and revenge. A little far-fetched maybe.
January 7, 2025
Now I've never liked Mary Gordon, but I have to give the Devil her due. PAYBACK is the most entertaining, outrageous, and irreverent novel she's ever written!
The plot is simple -- a mean girl seeking revenge on the teacher who let her down. But Mary Gordon uses the trashiest of tropes to unleash a truly outrageous heroine. Heidi (later called Quin) steals the book right out from under simpering old Agnes, the well-meaning teacher. Agnes loves the Virgin Mary. And she loves trees. And she loves her dog. But ferocious, unforgiving Quin hates everyone. She's as boldly defiant as Milton's Satan, with all the brooding intensity of the Prince of Darkness. ("I will not serve!") She's as vengeful and driven as Ahab, the one-legged whaling captain in Herman Melville's MOBY DICK. ("What I've dared, I've willed. What I've willed, I'll do!") And she's as probing, incisive, and intimately cruel as Chillingworth in Nathaniel Hawthorne's New England classic THE SCARLET LETTER. (You can almost hear timid, simpering Agnes echoing weak-willed, helpless Dimmesdale. "That old man's revenge has been blacker than my sin!")
What makes all this so remarkable is that Mary Gordon has spent her entire literary career ridiculing American literature, and in particular the classic works of white, Protestant male authors. But this time around, the fat is in the fire. The shoe is on the other foot. And there's no beating around the bush! Quin is Frankenstein's monster, lumbering into town and taking aim at everything her creator holds sacred. Great Art. European culture. Class privilege. Private education. Private beaches. Fancy doorknockers. Not since Marshall Jim Duncan drifted back into Lago in Clint Eastwood's "High Plains Drifter" has there been such a delicious fantasy of revenge!
But these warm-hearted hijinks can be deceiving. Quin gets in plenty of sharp one-liners about things Mary Gordon has always secretly hated. The Sixties Anti-War Movement. Lazy fat chicks. Civil Rights. Quin attacks the dirty loose morals of the Swinging Sixties, the vulgarity of rock music, and the hypocrisy of woke liberals then and now. But sadly, Mary Gordon only lets her go so far. When Agnes runs away to Rome, that's off-limits. Quin never gets to comment on the absurdity of the supposedly Protestant, supposedly New England born Agnes groveling before the decaying idols of Catholic Rome, literally licking the dirt off rotting images of the Virgin Mary. Now this is what a real New England Puritan would call Popish idolatry. But Agnes can't get enough. Idol worship -- it's the new repentance!
Oh, but there's more. When she's newly arrived in Rome, supposedly heart-broken about what happened to young Heidi on her watch, Agnes falls in with a fat and jolly art scholar named Jasper. Now Jasper is a real creep. He makes no secret of his interest in young boys, and he boasts about luring them into bed and using money and intimidation to keep them quiet. (You don't have be a genius to figure out how all this connects to recent events within the Catholic Church.) And what does Agnes do about it? Not a lot, really. She makes excuses. And she looks the other way. And you start to wonder how much she really cares about what happened to Heidi . . . before she became Quin.
Mary Gordon's ethics, to say nothing of her knowledge of American history and the human heart, are shaky at best. But on a mechanical level, this is a very sloppily written book. Quin's dialogue is always sharp and witty, but most of the background is very sketchy. The Farnsworth School, where most of the early action takes place, never really felt real to me. None of the girls, except for evil Heidi, ever mention feeling bored or stir-crazy. And they never mention boys. Heidi's hatred of boys and sex (and dirt, and body odor) is vintage Mary Gordon, but it comes too early, and it's too over the top. It all feels very Irish Catholic, which is strange because Heidi's family is supposed to Swiss. Or Austrian. Mary Gordon can't seem to tell the difference. Or maybe she's just not that interested.
Now Heidi's mom is supposed to be sexy, sinister, and oh-so-exotic, a cross between Anita Ekberg and Ivana Trump. But when she opens her mouth all that comes out is warmed over, blue-collar nastiness from Mary Gordon's old neighborhood. ("Art? Beauty? Who needs it? Stifle yourself, Edith!") And that's the problem, really. Mary Gordon, who hates Trump, who desperately wants to be a lady, will always have a lot more in common with Archie Bunker and the Donald than with Jane Austen or Nathaniel Hawthorne. Or the Virgin Mary, for that matter.
But still, as Mary Gordon novels go, this one was a lot of fun. I just wish Agnes' son in law Marcus did more than shuffle in and out with trays of food and drink. I mean, I know she adores him, because Mary Gordon says so. A lot. But these days black men do a lot more than just take care of their white folks. For my money, Marcus is a little too quick to step and fetch it, a little too eager to tell Agnes how special she is. (Though her pure, maidenly blush when he gently reminds her that black people are used to being hated is truly priceless.) Come to think of it, it's strange how Marcus never sees Quin's point of view about being excluded from things. When evil Quin moves in next door, he's just as shocked and angry as everyone else.
If I was Marcus, I'd just laugh and say "there goes the neighborhood!"
The plot is simple -- a mean girl seeking revenge on the teacher who let her down. But Mary Gordon uses the trashiest of tropes to unleash a truly outrageous heroine. Heidi (later called Quin) steals the book right out from under simpering old Agnes, the well-meaning teacher. Agnes loves the Virgin Mary. And she loves trees. And she loves her dog. But ferocious, unforgiving Quin hates everyone. She's as boldly defiant as Milton's Satan, with all the brooding intensity of the Prince of Darkness. ("I will not serve!") She's as vengeful and driven as Ahab, the one-legged whaling captain in Herman Melville's MOBY DICK. ("What I've dared, I've willed. What I've willed, I'll do!") And she's as probing, incisive, and intimately cruel as Chillingworth in Nathaniel Hawthorne's New England classic THE SCARLET LETTER. (You can almost hear timid, simpering Agnes echoing weak-willed, helpless Dimmesdale. "That old man's revenge has been blacker than my sin!")
What makes all this so remarkable is that Mary Gordon has spent her entire literary career ridiculing American literature, and in particular the classic works of white, Protestant male authors. But this time around, the fat is in the fire. The shoe is on the other foot. And there's no beating around the bush! Quin is Frankenstein's monster, lumbering into town and taking aim at everything her creator holds sacred. Great Art. European culture. Class privilege. Private education. Private beaches. Fancy doorknockers. Not since Marshall Jim Duncan drifted back into Lago in Clint Eastwood's "High Plains Drifter" has there been such a delicious fantasy of revenge!
But these warm-hearted hijinks can be deceiving. Quin gets in plenty of sharp one-liners about things Mary Gordon has always secretly hated. The Sixties Anti-War Movement. Lazy fat chicks. Civil Rights. Quin attacks the dirty loose morals of the Swinging Sixties, the vulgarity of rock music, and the hypocrisy of woke liberals then and now. But sadly, Mary Gordon only lets her go so far. When Agnes runs away to Rome, that's off-limits. Quin never gets to comment on the absurdity of the supposedly Protestant, supposedly New England born Agnes groveling before the decaying idols of Catholic Rome, literally licking the dirt off rotting images of the Virgin Mary. Now this is what a real New England Puritan would call Popish idolatry. But Agnes can't get enough. Idol worship -- it's the new repentance!
Oh, but there's more. When she's newly arrived in Rome, supposedly heart-broken about what happened to young Heidi on her watch, Agnes falls in with a fat and jolly art scholar named Jasper. Now Jasper is a real creep. He makes no secret of his interest in young boys, and he boasts about luring them into bed and using money and intimidation to keep them quiet. (You don't have be a genius to figure out how all this connects to recent events within the Catholic Church.) And what does Agnes do about it? Not a lot, really. She makes excuses. And she looks the other way. And you start to wonder how much she really cares about what happened to Heidi . . . before she became Quin.
Mary Gordon's ethics, to say nothing of her knowledge of American history and the human heart, are shaky at best. But on a mechanical level, this is a very sloppily written book. Quin's dialogue is always sharp and witty, but most of the background is very sketchy. The Farnsworth School, where most of the early action takes place, never really felt real to me. None of the girls, except for evil Heidi, ever mention feeling bored or stir-crazy. And they never mention boys. Heidi's hatred of boys and sex (and dirt, and body odor) is vintage Mary Gordon, but it comes too early, and it's too over the top. It all feels very Irish Catholic, which is strange because Heidi's family is supposed to Swiss. Or Austrian. Mary Gordon can't seem to tell the difference. Or maybe she's just not that interested.
Now Heidi's mom is supposed to be sexy, sinister, and oh-so-exotic, a cross between Anita Ekberg and Ivana Trump. But when she opens her mouth all that comes out is warmed over, blue-collar nastiness from Mary Gordon's old neighborhood. ("Art? Beauty? Who needs it? Stifle yourself, Edith!") And that's the problem, really. Mary Gordon, who hates Trump, who desperately wants to be a lady, will always have a lot more in common with Archie Bunker and the Donald than with Jane Austen or Nathaniel Hawthorne. Or the Virgin Mary, for that matter.
But still, as Mary Gordon novels go, this one was a lot of fun. I just wish Agnes' son in law Marcus did more than shuffle in and out with trays of food and drink. I mean, I know she adores him, because Mary Gordon says so. A lot. But these days black men do a lot more than just take care of their white folks. For my money, Marcus is a little too quick to step and fetch it, a little too eager to tell Agnes how special she is. (Though her pure, maidenly blush when he gently reminds her that black people are used to being hated is truly priceless.) Come to think of it, it's strange how Marcus never sees Quin's point of view about being excluded from things. When evil Quin moves in next door, he's just as shocked and angry as everyone else.
If I was Marcus, I'd just laugh and say "there goes the neighborhood!"
November 22, 2020
This is not one of my favorite books by Mary Gordon, an author I admire greatly. I see it as a Trump-era book in which an unscrupulous reality show host, in this case a woman, tries to make people miserable. She urges people to come forward and name those who have hurt them in the past so the show can go to the alleged harmers' doorsteps and blame them. She sees this as a way of avoiding victimhood.
The only saving grace about Quin, the TV show host, is that she had a hostile, unloving mother and an awful girlhood. Unfortunately, she was unable to get beyond that. Her anger is directed at a former high school teacher who failed her with unsympathetic words at a crucial moment. Quin ran away.
The book is clearly stacked in favor of the teacher, a usually kind woman who has, perhaps a little unrealistically, felt guilty about this student for the rest of her life.
Towards the end, the parallel with Trump is made explicit.
I don't think there's as much moral complexity in this book as I would expect from Mary Gordon, but it is a good portrayal of an aging woman's life and feelings. I wonder why she made the protagonist a Protestant, given that she usually writes about Catholics.
My favorite book by Gordon is Where the Heart Lies, a superb novel that features the Spanish Civil War.
The only saving grace about Quin, the TV show host, is that she had a hostile, unloving mother and an awful girlhood. Unfortunately, she was unable to get beyond that. Her anger is directed at a former high school teacher who failed her with unsympathetic words at a crucial moment. Quin ran away.
The book is clearly stacked in favor of the teacher, a usually kind woman who has, perhaps a little unrealistically, felt guilty about this student for the rest of her life.
Towards the end, the parallel with Trump is made explicit.
I don't think there's as much moral complexity in this book as I would expect from Mary Gordon, but it is a good portrayal of an aging woman's life and feelings. I wonder why she made the protagonist a Protestant, given that she usually writes about Catholics.
My favorite book by Gordon is Where the Heart Lies, a superb novel that features the Spanish Civil War.
September 26, 2021
I hadn't read a Mary Gordon book for a long time and had forgotten what a beautiful and insightful writer she is. This is a slow paced story with long chapters but I really became involved in Agnes' character and the people in her life. The observation that Agnes had at least 10 carefree years before tragedies began to happen was not lost on me. This is what happens as we age and friends and family leave our lives. The lead characters, Agnes and Quin, are consumed by guilt and revenge, recurring themes in this book and their lives are motivated by those draining burdens. Agnes feels guilt over a mistake she made as a young teacher that she has never forgiven herself for and my sympathy was totally with her. Quin was a damaged individual but her quest for revenge was cruel and unnecessary yet was just the kind of action to be expected from such a hateful person. This book made me have to stop and think a lot and although it made me sad I am very grateful to have read it.
February 26, 2021
The US television series “Payback” reunites guests with those who've wronged them in the past and helps them get justice (often in the form of money). Fans of celebrity host Quin Archer love her tough, uncompromising vigilanteism and gleefully adopt her catchphrase: “blah blah blah and boo hoo hoo”. One day, Quin makes a sensational on-air announcement: next week, the story is going to be personal. Quin has her own private betrayal, and she plans to go public and confront her nemesis on air.
The action then jumps back to the 1970s, when a shy and awkward teenage Quin - known by her birth name Heidi at the time - is sexually assaulted while away at boarding school. She confides in her young and idealistic (but inexperienced and inadequately trained) teacher Agnes, who handles the situation badly and Heidi subsequently disappears. The book follows the separate stories - of Heidi/Quin as she struggles and then rises above her trauma (but is still obviously driven by it) and of Agnes as she comes to realise her mistake and its consequences and runs away to find her own new life in Italy - converging on the upcoming “Payback” episode in which Quin plans to out Agnes to the world.
I have two main quibbles with the book. First, there’s far too much extraneous matter which has nothing to do with the story and doesn’t contribute to the development or revelation of the characters. I initially enjoyed the detailed descriptions of Rome and Agnes’s life there - structured as stream of consciousness as she takes the airport bus through the city for the last time. However, it was just too much for this book, and brought the initially relatively fast pace almost to a standstill for chapters.
Second, and more importantly: the presentation of the two women and their stories is jarringly lopsided. Payback is Agnes’s story with Heidi/Quin as a bit player who seems to exist mainly to reflect Agnes back herself and ultimately to reassure her that she is in the right and on the side of beauty and goodness and civility. There is one brief and intriguing glimpse of teenage Heidi as a real person. The entire section of the book describing the day Heidi was attacked is extremely well done, making a prickly, intentionally disagreeable, and unlikeable character if not sympathetic then at least coherent and relatable.
But that’s about the last we see of human Heidi - she disappears and then reappears as a cardboard cut-out villain. She’s crass, she’d do anything for ratings, she tells lies, she plots against her competitors while flattering them to their faces, she married a man she doesn’t love, she likes ugly McMansions, she makes fun of liberals and pacifists and anyone who's not white. It’s lazy and overly simplistic. Oh, and she lives to make Agnes’s life a misery; she has no agency of her own. It did cross my mind that Quin might be a figment of Agnes’s imagination, created to assuage her guilt - but if so, the author isn’t letting the readers in on this angle.
It’s also not clear why Agnes feels such guilt in the first place - her knee-jerk reaction to Heidi’s confidence might have been the final detail that caused Heidi to snap, but Agnes wasn’t the one who raped her. And Agnes's actions, however painful for Heidi, were unfortunately nowhere near the top of the list of ways those who were supposed to help and protect the girl failed her. The whole issue of Agnes’s guilt feels oddly misplaced and self-indulgent. (As a side note, Agnes and her close-knit circle aren’t the greatest either - one openly speculates that Heidi completely made up the rape and another is married to her former secondary school student and protégé - but there’s little criticism forthcoming from the author or any of the other characters.) And the completely unnecessary epilogue reads like revenge fantasy fanfic.
I may well be guilty of too much backseat driving - criticising the author because this is not how I would have handled her intriguing premise - but the book overall just didn’t work for me in spite of some stretches of beautifully evocative writing and exposition.
The action then jumps back to the 1970s, when a shy and awkward teenage Quin - known by her birth name Heidi at the time - is sexually assaulted while away at boarding school. She confides in her young and idealistic (but inexperienced and inadequately trained) teacher Agnes, who handles the situation badly and Heidi subsequently disappears. The book follows the separate stories - of Heidi/Quin as she struggles and then rises above her trauma (but is still obviously driven by it) and of Agnes as she comes to realise her mistake and its consequences and runs away to find her own new life in Italy - converging on the upcoming “Payback” episode in which Quin plans to out Agnes to the world.
I have two main quibbles with the book. First, there’s far too much extraneous matter which has nothing to do with the story and doesn’t contribute to the development or revelation of the characters. I initially enjoyed the detailed descriptions of Rome and Agnes’s life there - structured as stream of consciousness as she takes the airport bus through the city for the last time. However, it was just too much for this book, and brought the initially relatively fast pace almost to a standstill for chapters.
Second, and more importantly: the presentation of the two women and their stories is jarringly lopsided. Payback is Agnes’s story with Heidi/Quin as a bit player who seems to exist mainly to reflect Agnes back herself and ultimately to reassure her that she is in the right and on the side of beauty and goodness and civility. There is one brief and intriguing glimpse of teenage Heidi as a real person. The entire section of the book describing the day Heidi was attacked is extremely well done, making a prickly, intentionally disagreeable, and unlikeable character if not sympathetic then at least coherent and relatable.
But that’s about the last we see of human Heidi - she disappears and then reappears as a cardboard cut-out villain. She’s crass, she’d do anything for ratings, she tells lies, she plots against her competitors while flattering them to their faces, she married a man she doesn’t love, she likes ugly McMansions, she makes fun of liberals and pacifists and anyone who's not white. It’s lazy and overly simplistic. Oh, and she lives to make Agnes’s life a misery; she has no agency of her own. It did cross my mind that Quin might be a figment of Agnes’s imagination, created to assuage her guilt - but if so, the author isn’t letting the readers in on this angle.
It’s also not clear why Agnes feels such guilt in the first place - her knee-jerk reaction to Heidi’s confidence might have been the final detail that caused Heidi to snap, but Agnes wasn’t the one who raped her. And Agnes's actions, however painful for Heidi, were unfortunately nowhere near the top of the list of ways those who were supposed to help and protect the girl failed her. The whole issue of Agnes’s guilt feels oddly misplaced and self-indulgent. (As a side note, Agnes and her close-knit circle aren’t the greatest either - one openly speculates that Heidi completely made up the rape and another is married to her former secondary school student and protégé - but there’s little criticism forthcoming from the author or any of the other characters.) And the completely unnecessary epilogue reads like revenge fantasy fanfic.
I may well be guilty of too much backseat driving - criticising the author because this is not how I would have handled her intriguing premise - but the book overall just didn’t work for me in spite of some stretches of beautifully evocative writing and exposition.
December 6, 2020
Both the Mary Gordon books I’ve read explore the losses and compromises of late middle age. Her 2011 novel The Love of My Youth is tepid and predictable. After years in a reasonably successful marriage, do I go back to the boyfriend I was so crazy about in my twenties? I think we all know what the answer to that question is going to be, especially for a decorous, haut bourgeois writer like Mary Gordon.
Payback sets up a much juicier premise, and Gordon plays a little rougher and grittier here, at least at moments. The novel begins in early 2018, as a group of Arizona housewives gather to watch their favorite reality TV show, called Payback. The host, Quin Archer, has made getting even her life’s work. The premise of her show is that she helps victims get their revenge on those who’ve wronged them, and her motto is “Forgiveness without payback keeps a victim in his chains.”
Then we meet Agnes, who is returning home to the U.S. after a successful life of more than 40 years in Rome, where she essentially went to escape the wrong she had done to another. Agnes was a popular art teacher at a New England girl’s school in the early 1970s, where she reached out to and tried, clumsily, to help the most unpopular student. A reader of 2020 will probably be surprised by both how Agnes tries to help Heidi and how she fails her. But in the context of the time, both things make a certain amount of sense. Now Agnes feels great trepidation about returning home. Somehow, she senses that she might be running into Heidi again.
It doesn’t take long to figure out who Heidi is, or who she’s become, and that she will indeed be meeting up with Agnes again. Heidi in her teens, the unloved child of a monstrously narcissistic mother and a paternal nonentity, is talented but at the same time curiously unappealing. She seems set up to be a villain, and she’s enabled on that journey by her discovery of Ayn Rand. One of the more satisfying things about this novel – besides the fact that it has at least one character with a few teeth – is that Ayn Rand gets the treatment she deserves.
Perhaps, in the end, you will find that Agnes is just a little too saintly, and Quin just a bit too unrelenting. Like Laura Ingraham with an Arizona tan, she’s not someone who wastes a lot of time on the milk of human kindness. But does Agnes really have to be such a sap? Her guilt is undeniable and even laudable, but after a while, it almost seems that Quin could have taught her a thing or two. Between the two of them, they could form one complete human being. But Mary Gordon is a writer of considerable intellectual gifts, and this book is bound to leave you pondering. Were the choices here inevitable? And is Agnes really responsible for what became of Heidi? In the end, I’m left wondering if she didn’t deserve a little payback too.
January 8, 2021
I always enjoy Mary Gordon’s writing. This book has an interesting premise, about the reunion of two women after a gut-wrenching meeting that left one woman feeling guilty and the other deeply wronged.
Having taught in an all girls private school myself, I identify with Agnes, the teacher who never quite gets over letting down a student when she was needed. Agnes is lucky to have contacts in Italy, where she can escape her guilt, find a husband, raise a family, and find a fulfilling career.
Heidi, the student she lets down, takes a far different path. She is ambitious, disciplined, and absolutely unforgiving. After discovering Ayn Rand in her mid-20s, she never looks back. Selfishness is her new motto. Self-sufficiency is strength. Kindness is weakness. This character is far less believable. I mean how long can you carry a grudge, and just how far?
It's true, though, that one wrong turn, one, one mistake, or one thoughtless remark can haunt you for the rest of your life. How does one get over self-incrimination? My advice to Agnes would be to count her blessings, which are considerable, even as a widower.
Having taught in an all girls private school myself, I identify with Agnes, the teacher who never quite gets over letting down a student when she was needed. Agnes is lucky to have contacts in Italy, where she can escape her guilt, find a husband, raise a family, and find a fulfilling career.
Heidi, the student she lets down, takes a far different path. She is ambitious, disciplined, and absolutely unforgiving. After discovering Ayn Rand in her mid-20s, she never looks back. Selfishness is her new motto. Self-sufficiency is strength. Kindness is weakness. This character is far less believable. I mean how long can you carry a grudge, and just how far?
It's true, though, that one wrong turn, one, one mistake, or one thoughtless remark can haunt you for the rest of your life. How does one get over self-incrimination? My advice to Agnes would be to count her blessings, which are considerable, even as a widower.
October 22, 2021
The premise of this book was a good one - IF the cause for the "payback" was worthy. Because it wasn't, it came off as a whiny, self-absorbed book where the author uses the characters to air her viewpoints on life in general. The narrator of this on didn't do it any favors as well.
Skip it.
Skip it.
November 30, 2020
The story within the story of Agne's life in Italy is wonderful, but the whole premise of seeking revenge in this case is completely misguided and silly. Skip it.
January 17, 2021
Agnes, a 25-year old art teacher at a tony private girls’ school in Rhode Island, enjoys her work, is steady and responsible and is dedicated to her teenage charges. She notices that one girl, Heidi, bright but angry and beyond prickly, is liked by no one and quietly sets about trying to make a difference with positive attention and praise. So it is that Heidi comes to her one night after a disastrous outing to New York City and Agnes, woken from a deep sleep and shocked by Heidi’s story, unthinkingly says exactly the wrong thing. Feeling deeply betrayed, Heidi, 16 years old, steals money from her neglectful (and truly dreadful) parents and runs away. Profoundly remorseful for her role in Heidi’s disappearance, Agnes can’t eat or sleep, develops terrible eczema, spends months showing Heidi’s picture in places runaway teens congregate in NYC and, finally unable to bear her weight of guilt, resigns her job, breaks off her engagement and leaves the country for Rome.
The novel shows how life unfolds for both over the next 40 years. Agnes, gradually emerging from her depression, once again finds meaningful work she loves, falls in love, is surrounded by friends and family, in short, builds a wonderful life—though she never stops thinking and feeling guilty about Heidi. Heidi, on the other hand, is twisted and bitter, filled with anger and contempt for everyone around her. She discovers Ayn Rand and makes a virtue of extreme selfishness, eventually making her way to the Southwest and remaking herself as Quin Archer, host of a reality TV show called Payback. The premise of this show is that someone who was treated very badly gets to confront the one who done ‘em wrong, cameras rolling, and demand that wrongs are righted. Forgiveness is definitely not the point: it’s all about Payback. Heidi/Quin decides that her own story is perfect for the show and arranges to confront Agnes—40 years after the fact.
I guess the novel is meant to show the ways in which one can react to and recover from adversity and betrayal. The problem is that the two protagonists are so unnuanced: Agnes is virtually a saint, and Heidi is most definitely not. She is such a tight bundle of hate, contempt, anger, a liar, a force for vengeful destruction, a thoroughgoing creep! The author shows us her unhappy home life as a child, perhaps to explain how Heidi turned out as she did, but she is so unrelievedly hateful that it didn’t create any sympathy for her (certainly not in this reader, in any case).
The novel shows how life unfolds for both over the next 40 years. Agnes, gradually emerging from her depression, once again finds meaningful work she loves, falls in love, is surrounded by friends and family, in short, builds a wonderful life—though she never stops thinking and feeling guilty about Heidi. Heidi, on the other hand, is twisted and bitter, filled with anger and contempt for everyone around her. She discovers Ayn Rand and makes a virtue of extreme selfishness, eventually making her way to the Southwest and remaking herself as Quin Archer, host of a reality TV show called Payback. The premise of this show is that someone who was treated very badly gets to confront the one who done ‘em wrong, cameras rolling, and demand that wrongs are righted. Forgiveness is definitely not the point: it’s all about Payback. Heidi/Quin decides that her own story is perfect for the show and arranges to confront Agnes—40 years after the fact.
I guess the novel is meant to show the ways in which one can react to and recover from adversity and betrayal. The problem is that the two protagonists are so unnuanced: Agnes is virtually a saint, and Heidi is most definitely not. She is such a tight bundle of hate, contempt, anger, a liar, a force for vengeful destruction, a thoroughgoing creep! The author shows us her unhappy home life as a child, perhaps to explain how Heidi turned out as she did, but she is so unrelievedly hateful that it didn’t create any sympathy for her (certainly not in this reader, in any case).
November 9, 2020
Dreary, depressing novel, featuring a thoroughly unlikable, hateful, woman, who builds a life around wreaking revenge, both for the optics of the reality TV show she directs and personally for her own satisfaction.
Heidi Stoltz is a student of Agnes Vaughn's at a prestigious Rhode Island High School in 1972. Agnes senses immediately that Heidi is the victim of a cruel upbringing and she sets out to help the girl, to offer her guidance and some sort of comfort. After enduring a brutal attack Heidi runs to Agnes for help and is stunned at the response she receives. Thus begins a life cold, hard, vengeance, until the time she can give payback to Agnes, many years later.
In addition to the totally unpleasant subject matter, the writing style of the novel is lifeless - all "tell", very little "show". Except for a few chapters at the beginning and the end of the book, the entire novel is exposition with Gordon simply narrating the lives Heidi and Agnes lead between the initial event and the final showdown.
I am not sure what the point of this story was. Most of Agnes' life is lived in Rome, with pages and pages of description of the city devoted to it. Did Gordon view this novel as a chance to describe a city she loves (I am just guessing - will need to do research and see if she has lived there)? Did she want to write a book about a totally unredeemable human being?
I persevered with the novel out of curiosity - what would Heidi do to Agnes? And in the end, it was one big fizzle.
Heidi Stoltz is a student of Agnes Vaughn's at a prestigious Rhode Island High School in 1972. Agnes senses immediately that Heidi is the victim of a cruel upbringing and she sets out to help the girl, to offer her guidance and some sort of comfort. After enduring a brutal attack Heidi runs to Agnes for help and is stunned at the response she receives. Thus begins a life cold, hard, vengeance, until the time she can give payback to Agnes, many years later.
In addition to the totally unpleasant subject matter, the writing style of the novel is lifeless - all "tell", very little "show". Except for a few chapters at the beginning and the end of the book, the entire novel is exposition with Gordon simply narrating the lives Heidi and Agnes lead between the initial event and the final showdown.
I am not sure what the point of this story was. Most of Agnes' life is lived in Rome, with pages and pages of description of the city devoted to it. Did Gordon view this novel as a chance to describe a city she loves (I am just guessing - will need to do research and see if she has lived there)? Did she want to write a book about a totally unredeemable human being?
I persevered with the novel out of curiosity - what would Heidi do to Agnes? And in the end, it was one big fizzle.
January 22, 2022
I read this for book club and I really did not like it. I wouldn't have finished it had it not been a book club pick. The writing is not great, the characters are awful. I think the idea was interesting and could have made for a really great short story, but as as 300+ page novel, you just bogged down in the details. I had a hard time believing that this woman, Agnes, would carry around the guilt for 40 plus years. I hated every word I had to read in Heidi's voice. She was the most unlikeable character I have ever read. Yeah, just no.
October 29, 2020
I wish I had read this with a book group, because I don't know what to think! On the one hand, I found it pretty gripping; it almost made me anxious and I read it very quickly to see what happened. On the other, I wasn't sure if I found Agnes's guilt a bit much, Quin's malevolence all that believable, and the ending a bit pat. Either way, someone I know please read this so we can talk about all of it!
Also: I LOVED her descriptions of the joys of having a dog. Spot on.
Also: I LOVED her descriptions of the joys of having a dog. Spot on.
December 1, 2020
DNF.
Oh, the beginning was sooooo intriguing. A young girl who was wronged grows into a woman with a show called Payback. Where she gives people payback for wrongs they’ve done to others.
But then, the author goes back in time to set the stage, and set the stage, and set the stage til I just couldn’t read anymore.
Oh, the beginning was sooooo intriguing. A young girl who was wronged grows into a woman with a show called Payback. Where she gives people payback for wrongs they’ve done to others.
But then, the author goes back in time to set the stage, and set the stage, and set the stage til I just couldn’t read anymore.
October 17, 2020
This book did not live up to the NYTimes review. The story felt predictable and the characters were one-dimensional.
April 12, 2022
Okay, there are some spoilers here.
Probably the worst book ever written about a girls' private school. All the details are fake. A teacher *tells* a student to take the train into NYC and then go to a museum all by herself? And the girl goes home with an older man because "he's wearing an ascot?" Why not a monocle and a top hat? You can totally tell something bad is going to happen -- but she's not suspicious at all. Of course not!
So the girl gets raped, and she's riding back to school on the train, all shook up. Only suddenly, she's driving a car!!! A teenager in boarding school with her own car? Then why did she take the train? Then suddenly she's at the teacher's house -- the teachers don't live on campus? So the teacher is totally mean to her, and the girl drives away vowing revenge. Because she can't just tell her parents, and have them sue the school, and get the teacher filed for being a total idiot!
There was a lot more to the book, about the teacher going to Italy, but it was stupid. It's clear that this writer knows nothing about girls, boarding school, or how it feels to be young. What she doesn't know is what she can't remember, and what she can't remember is what she's desperate to forget. She doesn't know much about Shakespeare, either, because at one point one of the characters defends King Lear, violently and crudely, as a triumph of genteel art over the coarseness and crudeness of Bob Dylan. Cordelia dies in Lear's arms a virgin, and *that* my dears, is Shakespeare!
Ah, but . . . if the cat will after kind, so be sure will Rosalind!
Probably the worst book ever written about a girls' private school. All the details are fake. A teacher *tells* a student to take the train into NYC and then go to a museum all by herself? And the girl goes home with an older man because "he's wearing an ascot?" Why not a monocle and a top hat? You can totally tell something bad is going to happen -- but she's not suspicious at all. Of course not!
So the girl gets raped, and she's riding back to school on the train, all shook up. Only suddenly, she's driving a car!!! A teenager in boarding school with her own car? Then why did she take the train? Then suddenly she's at the teacher's house -- the teachers don't live on campus? So the teacher is totally mean to her, and the girl drives away vowing revenge. Because she can't just tell her parents, and have them sue the school, and get the teacher filed for being a total idiot!
There was a lot more to the book, about the teacher going to Italy, but it was stupid. It's clear that this writer knows nothing about girls, boarding school, or how it feels to be young. What she doesn't know is what she can't remember, and what she can't remember is what she's desperate to forget. She doesn't know much about Shakespeare, either, because at one point one of the characters defends King Lear, violently and crudely, as a triumph of genteel art over the coarseness and crudeness of Bob Dylan. Cordelia dies in Lear's arms a virgin, and *that* my dears, is Shakespeare!
Ah, but . . . if the cat will after kind, so be sure will Rosalind!
November 20, 2020
What a strange, unsettling book. I had forgotten that Mary Gordon's books are about what we owe each other, about guilt and human inadequacy.
One strange thing is that this bizarre reality TV star named Quin begins the book in with seven pages about her show, which is called "Payback." Then the story shifts and we're in Rhode Island with entirely new characters...one an art teacher at a posh private girls' school; her three friends who also teach there...one teaches English, another science; and one particular girl who the main character takes under her wing. We learn about Agnes's story which is as sad as something out of Dickens, the teacher tries to help this strange waif, and blows it.
What unfolds feels at times so unexpected and disjointed that I couldn't center myself, although I loved the middle of the novel. It's a book about guilt and revenge and human failure. It's about poor parenting, and confused motivation and pride. I felt as though I were being emotionally thrown from side to side on a tilt-a-whirl as I went from one section to another. It wasn't easy, but it's remarkable how it worked on me.
Early on, Agnes tells her mother about Heidi. "Heidi Stolz has no one, Mother. Which is why my heart goes out to her."
"I've come to believe that about sixty percent of things we do turn out badly, but it would be dreadful not to do them." I tagged this passage early on. How did I already know it contained the core of the plot.
And...we're in Italy, where Agnes lives. She is working with someone who restores sculpture. There's a beautiful description of her work. And then a meditation on the word, "skill." "Skill, the sound of the word not conveying what it contained; skill, a joke sound, like a kind of game, whereas a skill was acquired slowly, it was about repetition and boredom and enduring the boredom and the shame of failure, looking squarely at what was wrong and forcing yourself to go on, going on when you had no real idea of where you might be going. And the pleasure when the skill was realized and you understood: this is mine, no one can take it from me."
And...this wonderful description of her husband, Pietro: "he was a happy man, and she believed she was a good, or good enough wife. She knew that Pietro was born to be a happy man and almost anyone would have been a good wife to him, that unlike him, she could have been married to no one else. To be whole, to have some sense of health...she required Pietro di Martini, with his lightness, his sweetness, his intelligent good humor, his aversion to self-analysis, his hopefulness, his faith in the goodness of life that had brought her back to life." (159) and this passage goes on, describing the wonder of her life with Pietro.
161) Leo, she says the name to herself, knowing without the slightest doubt that he is the greatest love of her life. She doesn't know how to find the words for a passion whose very name--grand-maternal--worked against the idea of passion, a word coupled inevitably with the rocking chair, the scrapbook...she was relieved to be free of the parent's narcissism, and so felt that the passion for this child was the purest of any of her life."
169 She knew what she was crying for. She was crying for the passing of dearness. Of those moments in a life that show its goodness, that have nothing to do with, have not the slightest tincture of greatness. What might pejoratively be called habit. She was crying because never again would she swim in the gentle sea of small pleasures whose repetition is so nourishing...."
170 So often, when thoughts of Heidi took her over, she could be distracted by walking the streets. Distraction, she thought, often has a bad name, but she had often found it a blessing.
a clientele that pretends to love nature when what the really love is an image of themselves ???page
Heidi believes that being envied is the most desirable thing in the world. 75
One strange thing is that this bizarre reality TV star named Quin begins the book in with seven pages about her show, which is called "Payback." Then the story shifts and we're in Rhode Island with entirely new characters...one an art teacher at a posh private girls' school; her three friends who also teach there...one teaches English, another science; and one particular girl who the main character takes under her wing. We learn about Agnes's story which is as sad as something out of Dickens, the teacher tries to help this strange waif, and blows it.
What unfolds feels at times so unexpected and disjointed that I couldn't center myself, although I loved the middle of the novel. It's a book about guilt and revenge and human failure. It's about poor parenting, and confused motivation and pride. I felt as though I were being emotionally thrown from side to side on a tilt-a-whirl as I went from one section to another. It wasn't easy, but it's remarkable how it worked on me.
Early on, Agnes tells her mother about Heidi. "Heidi Stolz has no one, Mother. Which is why my heart goes out to her."
"I've come to believe that about sixty percent of things we do turn out badly, but it would be dreadful not to do them." I tagged this passage early on. How did I already know it contained the core of the plot.
And...we're in Italy, where Agnes lives. She is working with someone who restores sculpture. There's a beautiful description of her work. And then a meditation on the word, "skill." "Skill, the sound of the word not conveying what it contained; skill, a joke sound, like a kind of game, whereas a skill was acquired slowly, it was about repetition and boredom and enduring the boredom and the shame of failure, looking squarely at what was wrong and forcing yourself to go on, going on when you had no real idea of where you might be going. And the pleasure when the skill was realized and you understood: this is mine, no one can take it from me."
And...this wonderful description of her husband, Pietro: "he was a happy man, and she believed she was a good, or good enough wife. She knew that Pietro was born to be a happy man and almost anyone would have been a good wife to him, that unlike him, she could have been married to no one else. To be whole, to have some sense of health...she required Pietro di Martini, with his lightness, his sweetness, his intelligent good humor, his aversion to self-analysis, his hopefulness, his faith in the goodness of life that had brought her back to life." (159) and this passage goes on, describing the wonder of her life with Pietro.
161) Leo, she says the name to herself, knowing without the slightest doubt that he is the greatest love of her life. She doesn't know how to find the words for a passion whose very name--grand-maternal--worked against the idea of passion, a word coupled inevitably with the rocking chair, the scrapbook...she was relieved to be free of the parent's narcissism, and so felt that the passion for this child was the purest of any of her life."
169 She knew what she was crying for. She was crying for the passing of dearness. Of those moments in a life that show its goodness, that have nothing to do with, have not the slightest tincture of greatness. What might pejoratively be called habit. She was crying because never again would she swim in the gentle sea of small pleasures whose repetition is so nourishing...."
170 So often, when thoughts of Heidi took her over, she could be distracted by walking the streets. Distraction, she thought, often has a bad name, but she had often found it a blessing.
a clientele that pretends to love nature when what the really love is an image of themselves ???page
Heidi believes that being envied is the most desirable thing in the world. 75
May 2, 2022
So much self loathing, ridiculousless and vengeance and then the book just stops! Very unsatisfying
November 22, 2020
My review of this book appears in Historical Novels Review issue 94 (November 2020):
Author/memoirist Gordon’s award-winning fiction often focuses on generational tensions and damage, and particularly the fraught relationships between mothers and daughters. She ramps up the conflict in this exploration of a reality-TV star’s plot to expose and punish her high school art teacher for a thoughtless comment 40 years before.
Heidi Stolz/Quin Archer is a thinly veiled Trump avatar (the 2016 election is mentioned frequently as a watershed event); she’s a child of privilege and emotional abuse, a devotee of Ayn Rand, who sees all relationships as transactional, and who believes what most would call virtue is actually weakness. Her carefully curated appearance, her cruelty, her self-serving interior monologues, are designed to cause revulsion in most readers. The art teacher, Agnes Vaughan di Pietro, seems at first to be Heidi’s mirror image: she’s empathetic, sensitive, and intensely moral. Gordon alternates the two protagonists carefully, allowing each a long narration of her life story before bringing them into collision, so that the reader can fully appreciate Agnes’s intense, lifelong guilt over the wrong she did Heidi (the novel’s action spans the years 1972-2018). The contrasting points of view invite the reader to compare one character who is everything we’re supposed to value — art, love, introspection — to another who is everything we’re supposed to reject — narcissism, vindictiveness, greed. But is Agnes’ self-absorption in her own guilt any less narcissistic? And is Heidi’s version of reality TV any less art? The conclusion is as surprising as it is suspenseful.
Gordon’s masterful structure and sense of voice create an intensely moving meditation on the relationship of the past self and its deeds to the present, as well as a brilliant evocation of the emotional impact of aging on women’s lives and identities.
Author/memoirist Gordon’s award-winning fiction often focuses on generational tensions and damage, and particularly the fraught relationships between mothers and daughters. She ramps up the conflict in this exploration of a reality-TV star’s plot to expose and punish her high school art teacher for a thoughtless comment 40 years before.
Heidi Stolz/Quin Archer is a thinly veiled Trump avatar (the 2016 election is mentioned frequently as a watershed event); she’s a child of privilege and emotional abuse, a devotee of Ayn Rand, who sees all relationships as transactional, and who believes what most would call virtue is actually weakness. Her carefully curated appearance, her cruelty, her self-serving interior monologues, are designed to cause revulsion in most readers. The art teacher, Agnes Vaughan di Pietro, seems at first to be Heidi’s mirror image: she’s empathetic, sensitive, and intensely moral. Gordon alternates the two protagonists carefully, allowing each a long narration of her life story before bringing them into collision, so that the reader can fully appreciate Agnes’s intense, lifelong guilt over the wrong she did Heidi (the novel’s action spans the years 1972-2018). The contrasting points of view invite the reader to compare one character who is everything we’re supposed to value — art, love, introspection — to another who is everything we’re supposed to reject — narcissism, vindictiveness, greed. But is Agnes’ self-absorption in her own guilt any less narcissistic? And is Heidi’s version of reality TV any less art? The conclusion is as surprising as it is suspenseful.
Gordon’s masterful structure and sense of voice create an intensely moving meditation on the relationship of the past self and its deeds to the present, as well as a brilliant evocation of the emotional impact of aging on women’s lives and identities.
May 26, 2022
This was just awful. There’s this girl Heidi who’s a little bitch and nobody likes her except for her art teacher Agnes, who is such a literal goody two shoes that there’s this whole big scene where she buys herself a pair of sexy boots and then overthinks it and gives them to Heidi. So Heidi’s at this museum in NYC and she meets this guy and he invites her back to his place for lunch and sex but she only wanted lunch, so she freaks out and drives to Agnes’s house, and Agnes is like why did you go back to a man’s apartment by yourself when you’re only 16 and it’s 1973 or something? So Heidi takes this perfectly logical advise and decides it’s worse than being raped and her parents hating her and not having any friends, and she steals money and jewels from her parents and runs away. Vowing revenge on Agnes. Agnes, meanwhile, is so overcome with guilt that she runs away to Rome for some reason? And both her and Heidi both think about this dumb shit literally every single day.
So Heidi (who has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever; she may as well have a mustache she twirls fiendishly) grows up and changes her name to Quin and has this stupid show called Payback, which has just been a ploy these many years to finally get to get “revenge” on her teacher for this terrible crime she committed.
I’m sorry. I just don’t buy it. Like it wasn’t cool she got raped, but, what did she think was gonna happen? And when Agnes asked her that same question, Heidi didn’t answer or give her time to rephrase what she’d just said; she just turned and bolted and ran away. And Agnes felt guilty about this every day for the rest of her life?!? Are you shitting me? They’re both horrible, one dimensional characters. Agnes practically had a halo floating over her head. Absolute shit.
I would like to mention that Final Payments is one of my favorite books of all time so I’m not sure what’s been going on in Mary Gordon’s life the last 40 years that’s got her churning out this crap.
So Heidi (who has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever; she may as well have a mustache she twirls fiendishly) grows up and changes her name to Quin and has this stupid show called Payback, which has just been a ploy these many years to finally get to get “revenge” on her teacher for this terrible crime she committed.
I’m sorry. I just don’t buy it. Like it wasn’t cool she got raped, but, what did she think was gonna happen? And when Agnes asked her that same question, Heidi didn’t answer or give her time to rephrase what she’d just said; she just turned and bolted and ran away. And Agnes felt guilty about this every day for the rest of her life?!? Are you shitting me? They’re both horrible, one dimensional characters. Agnes practically had a halo floating over her head. Absolute shit.
I would like to mention that Final Payments is one of my favorite books of all time so I’m not sure what’s been going on in Mary Gordon’s life the last 40 years that’s got her churning out this crap.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 24, 2020
A weird book, in that the good parts were genuinely great, but the overall arc and structure of the book did a disservice to the story, IMO. The Payback of the title refers to a reality TV show in which the host helps someone basically get revenge on someone who has wronged them. The core of the book is the story of the host and who wronged her a long time ago. That part is amazing, a good tale with Gordon’s impeccable writing and sly, beautifully observed and expressed insights into relationships among people. But I thought the framing device was a little tortured and didn’t really work very well. And the big “twist” at the end was a significant let down, to the point that I wasn’t 100% sure I even “got” it. It was just a weird framing device that sort of pointed out things about the characters that we’d already seen, already internalized, and reiterating them added basically nothing to the story. I even wondered why it was even in the book, which is not a great reaction to the central story arc. But, the book is still worth reading, because the middle part is just outstanding. So, taking all that together, I’d say this was a good book, potentially a great one, brought down by the machinations of telling the story. Still enjoyed it, though.
Grade: B+
Grade: B+
October 11, 2020
Mary Gordon's novel came recommended to me by a friend whose recommendations I always trust. I can't say the same for other friends.
Okay, that bit is out of the way. "Payback" has its highs and lows, but I think the lows defeat the highs in the end. The characters are well-drawn. But there is a lot of hand wringing and, as betrayals go, the one in the novel strikes me as pretty minor stuff. I'm not sure I would live my life harbouring such a grievance and a need for revenge.
Perhaps getting hung up over velvet drapery the colour of ripened figs represents some internal angst suffered by the main character. Then again, I just thought it's drapery... Get over it. Given that the novel references the Trump administration on several occasions, this drapery thing bugged. Is drapery supposed to be some kind of metaphor of the Trump era? If so, it didn't work.
Okay, that bit is out of the way. "Payback" has its highs and lows, but I think the lows defeat the highs in the end. The characters are well-drawn. But there is a lot of hand wringing and, as betrayals go, the one in the novel strikes me as pretty minor stuff. I'm not sure I would live my life harbouring such a grievance and a need for revenge.
Perhaps getting hung up over velvet drapery the colour of ripened figs represents some internal angst suffered by the main character. Then again, I just thought it's drapery... Get over it. Given that the novel references the Trump administration on several occasions, this drapery thing bugged. Is drapery supposed to be some kind of metaphor of the Trump era? If so, it didn't work.
February 4, 2021
Quin Archer has a show called Payback where people meet with the person who wronged them to get payback. In the past Agnes was a teacher and tried very hard even though she was very young to help those who weren't as popular, etc. Heidi is one of the students that Agnes tries to help but Heidi doesn't seem to want that attention. Heidi grew up with parents who did not want her then something happens and Heidi disappears and Agnes feels guilty. Agnes changes her life in so many ways trying to make up for the "wrong" that she did. Her life goes very different ways until late in her life when Heidi shows back up. The ending was not as good as I thought it could be but maybe it was just not the way I wanted it to end.
September 17, 2020
Bummer. I really wanted to love Payback, but I couldn't. I did like the reflections of Agnes, the woman in her seventies. I liked her close friends and family. I liked her honesty in knowing she had said the wrong thing to Heidi, her sixteen year old student. I didn't like that she couldn't forgive herself. I didn't like Heidi's ugliness and revenge. Perhaps I did not like the black and whiteness of the story and would have preferred more colors in between. There was no tension of those opposites, just reporting. I do like Mary Gordon however, and will look forward to her next novel.
December 5, 2020
The prose is beautiful, but I didn't care for this book. I think Gordon made a mistake making one of her two main characters so thoroughly unlikeable. I could imagine Gordon herself curling up her lip as she savaged her own creation. A conflict is more meaningful if we can feel for the characters on both sides.
The main success of the book is that it does make the reader think about atonement. Is it possible to make up for a terrible thing one has done, or should one do nothing, as some things can't be fixed? Gordon's characters take different views on the topic.
The main success of the book is that it does make the reader think about atonement. Is it possible to make up for a terrible thing one has done, or should one do nothing, as some things can't be fixed? Gordon's characters take different views on the topic.
March 18, 2021
DNF. I rarely DNF because I want to see the story through. I gave up on page 200 where it seemed to turn into an entirely different novel. After the childhood drama and trauma of Heidi, to Agnes in Rome, the story really shifted gears and it was often difficult to remember the original relationship between these two characters. I hit the wall of frustration when I reached the third part. So, I didn't get to the Payback, though I never really thought it was justified. In reading other reviews, it doesn't sound as though I missed anything.
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