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Livid
Sybil White Brown returns from Boston to the small West Coast city where she once lived, hoping to heal after a terrible loss. Summoned to jury duty, she is dismayed to be assigned to the jury of a murder trial alongside her ex-husband with whom she had a rancorous divorce. As the trial progresses, she and her ex tiptoe around each other but eventually become disastrously entangled. Meanwhile, Sybil obsesses about the female defendant, whom she believes is innocent. The situation explodes during jury deliberations when Sybil comes face-to-face with her own unexpressed rage.
272 pages, Paperback
Published September 27, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
October 4, 2024
Real Rating: 4.5* of five, rounded up
The Publisher Says: A woman who is suffering from a tragic loss is placed on a jury with her estranged ex-husband.
Sybil White Brown returns from Boston to the small West Coast city where she once lived, hoping to heal after a terrible loss. Summoned to jury duty, she is dismayed to be assigned to the jury of a murder trial alongside her ex-husband with whom she had a rancorous divorce. As the trial progresses, she and her ex tiptoe around each other but eventually become disastrously entangled. Meanwhile, Sybil obsesses about the female defendant, whom she believes is innocent. The situation explodes during jury deliberations when Sybil comes face-to-face with her own unexpressed rage.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: If anyone knows the deep contours of female rage, it's Author Cai Emmons...she's received the death sentence that we all dread. Her life will end, and not at some distant and amorphously unknowable date, but quite soon.
Losing her voice to ALS has not silenced her, she says in LitHub. I'm glad it hasn't...I'm sad it won't get better...I'm deeply empathetic with her character's outrage!
As it happens, Author Emmons reached the end of her journey on the second of January. She was ten days short of her seventy-second birthday. I believe in some kind of afterlife, not one of personal survival or linked to An Eternal Reward or suchlike...but authors, for sure, experience an afterlife as long as their words, ideas, stories are read and thought about by we the living. I myownself will never forget Author Emmons for describing me, through the lens of someone else:
It is the gift of an observant person to see past surfaces. It is the skill of an author to turn surfaces into substance, to make a whole of a glance and a brushed-past contact into a deep, layered bounce.
When I read in the Acknowledgments that Author Emmons was fired up to write Livid by watching the Supreme Court nomination hearings of Brett Kavanaugh, I was so deeply outraged and infuriated that I put off reading the book. I knew, deep inside the withered and wizened recesses of my whatever-replaced-a-soul, that I would screech in outrage at anything inspired by the travesty of justice and comedy of errors that put the United States of America's Supreme Court in the hands of the scum presently on it. A bit much for me at the time. I put the book aside.
Reading that Author Emmons had died on the second, I felt gripped with the need to learn what she wanted us to know when she chose this inspiration to follow as she herownself began to let go of her grasp on the world. I know there are more books by her coming out this year. I can't say it strongly enough: I think her work is important in subject, appealing in style, and worthy in its spiritual aims. I hope you'll buy them all.
In this story, from its inspiration we can be sure there will be no shortage of enraging subject matter. It's still startling to me that there's a man left alive who has managed to willfully un-know that their condescension and contempt for Womanhood (as opposed to for an individual woman, a different kettle of fish) is a source of volcanic rage and what I'd call a "fond return of contempt." I'd run over the plot for you, but you can read, it's right up there. What I want you to know is how deeply and genuinely Author Emmons explores that fondness I called out.
Sybil, our narrator, seeing Drew, her ex-husband, for the first time since a genuine and deeply painful tragedy ended their marriage, is assailed by the deep and fundamental existence of her anger.
It is, as Sybil realizes, not possible to extricate her anger from her very being. That realization is central to everything that occurs in this short novel. Drew can't comprehend that Sybil is not going to "move on" or "forgive and forget," both of which nostrums are idiotic and unhelpful as concepts and impossible as goals in my own experience and in Sybil's. What she has done in her lifetime away from Drew and their shared hometown is...heal, scab over the wounds, to give herself a chance at making it through the nights and existing fully in the days of a different life than the one she left behind.
The jury that forms the book's internal audience for Sybil and Drew as the process the real reasons for the end of their relationship is largely faceless and affectless. The two people who count are Sybil and Sybil. Oh, and also Sybil. She is telling the story. She is setting the terms of our relationship with her. She is Responsible. And one gets the distinct impression that this is a unique experience in Sybil's life...think of Marguerite Duras' statement, "I believe there is a miracle in Wanda. Usually, there is a distance between representation and text, subject and action. Here that distance is completely eradicated", quoted about the actress Barbara Loden's one and only directorial outing. In Sybil, Cai Emmons does much the same thing: She utterly erases the barriers between the reader and the character. Not solely by having Sybil narrate the story. The story that Sybil narrates mutates, alters, grows as she tells us more and more of it. By the time the ending comes, heralded by a startling act of redemption, Sybil has finally filled all of her personal space. Sybil has, unlike generations of women, fully and completely claimed all of the mass, all of the depth, all of the breadth of her body, her mind, her heart.
She is, for the first time, her own and her full, self. I was left in complete awe of this feat. Sybil did not, as she began speaking to me, seem as though she would be the kind of character who could, who would dare, to answer this call and stretch her self into the last corners of the mold we call "selfhood." Yet by the end of this compact book, I was standing in Sybil's sole, shining presence. Her rage was too huge to be contained another moment. Her actions, at long last, balanced the delicate and fragile state of inaction and indifference to her self that Sybil was required, as a woman, to assume.
It was deeply and pleasantly surprising as well as subtly and satisfyingly performed in this closely built, quietly molded work of art. I hope you will honor the memory of Cai Emmons in your own way and starting by reading one of her last works strikes me as fitting.
*there are hyperlinks to sources in the blogged version of this review*
The Publisher Says: A woman who is suffering from a tragic loss is placed on a jury with her estranged ex-husband.
Sybil White Brown returns from Boston to the small West Coast city where she once lived, hoping to heal after a terrible loss. Summoned to jury duty, she is dismayed to be assigned to the jury of a murder trial alongside her ex-husband with whom she had a rancorous divorce. As the trial progresses, she and her ex tiptoe around each other but eventually become disastrously entangled. Meanwhile, Sybil obsesses about the female defendant, whom she believes is innocent. The situation explodes during jury deliberations when Sybil comes face-to-face with her own unexpressed rage.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: If anyone knows the deep contours of female rage, it's Author Cai Emmons...she's received the death sentence that we all dread. Her life will end, and not at some distant and amorphously unknowable date, but quite soon.
The question looms large: How does one assert oneself as a person, a woman, without a speaking voice, without sound waves commandeering attention?
Losing her voice to ALS has not silenced her, she says in LitHub. I'm glad it hasn't...I'm sad it won't get better...I'm deeply empathetic with her character's outrage!
As it happens, Author Emmons reached the end of her journey on the second of January. She was ten days short of her seventy-second birthday. I believe in some kind of afterlife, not one of personal survival or linked to An Eternal Reward or suchlike...but authors, for sure, experience an afterlife as long as their words, ideas, stories are read and thought about by we the living. I myownself will never forget Author Emmons for describing me, through the lens of someone else:
She wasn't old. Indeterminate thirties—everyone seems younger than I am these days—but her skin had been worked over, thickened and textured as if it was used to sealing things out, a skill I recognize.
It is the gift of an observant person to see past surfaces. It is the skill of an author to turn surfaces into substance, to make a whole of a glance and a brushed-past contact into a deep, layered bounce.
When I read in the Acknowledgments that Author Emmons was fired up to write Livid by watching the Supreme Court nomination hearings of Brett Kavanaugh, I was so deeply outraged and infuriated that I put off reading the book. I knew, deep inside the withered and wizened recesses of my whatever-replaced-a-soul, that I would screech in outrage at anything inspired by the travesty of justice and comedy of errors that put the United States of America's Supreme Court in the hands of the scum presently on it. A bit much for me at the time. I put the book aside.
Reading that Author Emmons had died on the second, I felt gripped with the need to learn what she wanted us to know when she chose this inspiration to follow as she herownself began to let go of her grasp on the world. I know there are more books by her coming out this year. I can't say it strongly enough: I think her work is important in subject, appealing in style, and worthy in its spiritual aims. I hope you'll buy them all.
In this story, from its inspiration we can be sure there will be no shortage of enraging subject matter. It's still startling to me that there's a man left alive who has managed to willfully un-know that their condescension and contempt for Womanhood (as opposed to for an individual woman, a different kettle of fish) is a source of volcanic rage and what I'd call a "fond return of contempt." I'd run over the plot for you, but you can read, it's right up there. What I want you to know is how deeply and genuinely Author Emmons explores that fondness I called out.
Sybil, our narrator, seeing Drew, her ex-husband, for the first time since a genuine and deeply painful tragedy ended their marriage, is assailed by the deep and fundamental existence of her anger.
The past will not die. It festers in the body's cells, inflames the tissues, refuses to relinquish its grip. In the face of such intransigence, what can you do but flee?
It is, as Sybil realizes, not possible to extricate her anger from her very being. That realization is central to everything that occurs in this short novel. Drew can't comprehend that Sybil is not going to "move on" or "forgive and forget," both of which nostrums are idiotic and unhelpful as concepts and impossible as goals in my own experience and in Sybil's. What she has done in her lifetime away from Drew and their shared hometown is...heal, scab over the wounds, to give herself a chance at making it through the nights and existing fully in the days of a different life than the one she left behind.
The jury that forms the book's internal audience for Sybil and Drew as the process the real reasons for the end of their relationship is largely faceless and affectless. The two people who count are Sybil and Sybil. Oh, and also Sybil. She is telling the story. She is setting the terms of our relationship with her. She is Responsible. And one gets the distinct impression that this is a unique experience in Sybil's life...think of Marguerite Duras' statement, "I believe there is a miracle in Wanda. Usually, there is a distance between representation and text, subject and action. Here that distance is completely eradicated", quoted about the actress Barbara Loden's one and only directorial outing. In Sybil, Cai Emmons does much the same thing: She utterly erases the barriers between the reader and the character. Not solely by having Sybil narrate the story. The story that Sybil narrates mutates, alters, grows as she tells us more and more of it. By the time the ending comes, heralded by a startling act of redemption, Sybil has finally filled all of her personal space. Sybil has, unlike generations of women, fully and completely claimed all of the mass, all of the depth, all of the breadth of her body, her mind, her heart.
She is, for the first time, her own and her full, self. I was left in complete awe of this feat. Sybil did not, as she began speaking to me, seem as though she would be the kind of character who could, who would dare, to answer this call and stretch her self into the last corners of the mold we call "selfhood." Yet by the end of this compact book, I was standing in Sybil's sole, shining presence. Her rage was too huge to be contained another moment. Her actions, at long last, balanced the delicate and fragile state of inaction and indifference to her self that Sybil was required, as a woman, to assume.
It was deeply and pleasantly surprising as well as subtly and satisfyingly performed in this closely built, quietly molded work of art. I hope you will honor the memory of Cai Emmons in your own way and starting by reading one of her last works strikes me as fitting.
*there are hyperlinks to sources in the blogged version of this review*
October 20, 2025
I have to admit, if you were to read about me on my page, you would find that my favorite type of stories are police procedurals and courtroom dramas. So, the other day, when I was looking for books to read, I did a search on my local library online page for these same type of books, and this one came up. Did it meet up to my expectations?
Premise: What happens when you find yourself on the same jury as your ex-husband? And, not only that, but your objectivity comes under question when you find yourself showing sympathy for the woman who is on trial for murder? How does this play into a locked-away memory of a tragedy that prompted you to leave your life? This is Sybil, our main character.
This novel touches on so many emotions. Some of which the author shares in her acknowledgements, that came from her watching the confirmation hearings for now Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh and how he belittled Christine Blasey Ford. The strength of those emotions come through in how the author showcases love, sex, grief, feminism, morality, fortitude and the complexities of human character. The author also does an amazing job of keeping readers off balance through her main character, Sybil.
Premise: What happens when you find yourself on the same jury as your ex-husband? And, not only that, but your objectivity comes under question when you find yourself showing sympathy for the woman who is on trial for murder? How does this play into a locked-away memory of a tragedy that prompted you to leave your life? This is Sybil, our main character.
This novel touches on so many emotions. Some of which the author shares in her acknowledgements, that came from her watching the confirmation hearings for now Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh and how he belittled Christine Blasey Ford. The strength of those emotions come through in how the author showcases love, sex, grief, feminism, morality, fortitude and the complexities of human character. The author also does an amazing job of keeping readers off balance through her main character, Sybil.
December 18, 2022
You know what’s even better than a novel that grabs you in the first few pages and never lets you go? It’s a novel that grabs you in the first few pages and never lets you go — written by someone you know.
And so it is with Eugene author Cai Emmons’ “Livid,” a mesmerizing story about a woman who is more than a little dismayed when she learns that her co-jurors in a murder trial include her ex-husband.
The book is part courtroom thriller, yes, but also much more — exploring such themes as the intensity of familial love, unbearable loss and grief, and the depths of female anger directed at misogyny’s double standards. (Cai reveals in her epilogic Acknowledgments that she was inspired to write “Livid” as she watched the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings in 2018.)
The novel also engages because it’s smart, insightful and lucid. I was moved to underline multiple passages that jumped out at me, and also to circle more than a dozen words so I could look them up later. (I don’t think Cai was showing off, she just has a naturally expansive vocabulary. Every word she chose, I discovered upon my visits to the dictionary, was the perfect word.)
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Cai since she was an aspiring would-be novelist several decades ago. “Livid” is her seventh novel, and one of two published in September 2022. Her writing has won her countless accolades and fans.
On page 151 of “Livid,” Cai makes what seems like an incidental reference to a foster home operator who falls ill with Lou Gehrig’s disease. As of this writing, Cai herself is dying from this fatal disease, which is also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. This is no secret, as Cai has addressed her impending fate head-on, on her website, with her typical wide-eyed courage. She is also the subject of a documentary-in-the-making (which anyone can help underwrite at gofundme.com) that will celebrate her literary and personal triumphs, her life and death.
Thank you, Cai, for being in our world, and for sharing your magnificent stories with us, your many lucky and grateful readers. Bravo!
And so it is with Eugene author Cai Emmons’ “Livid,” a mesmerizing story about a woman who is more than a little dismayed when she learns that her co-jurors in a murder trial include her ex-husband.
The book is part courtroom thriller, yes, but also much more — exploring such themes as the intensity of familial love, unbearable loss and grief, and the depths of female anger directed at misogyny’s double standards. (Cai reveals in her epilogic Acknowledgments that she was inspired to write “Livid” as she watched the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings in 2018.)
The novel also engages because it’s smart, insightful and lucid. I was moved to underline multiple passages that jumped out at me, and also to circle more than a dozen words so I could look them up later. (I don’t think Cai was showing off, she just has a naturally expansive vocabulary. Every word she chose, I discovered upon my visits to the dictionary, was the perfect word.)
I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Cai since she was an aspiring would-be novelist several decades ago. “Livid” is her seventh novel, and one of two published in September 2022. Her writing has won her countless accolades and fans.
On page 151 of “Livid,” Cai makes what seems like an incidental reference to a foster home operator who falls ill with Lou Gehrig’s disease. As of this writing, Cai herself is dying from this fatal disease, which is also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. This is no secret, as Cai has addressed her impending fate head-on, on her website, with her typical wide-eyed courage. She is also the subject of a documentary-in-the-making (which anyone can help underwrite at gofundme.com) that will celebrate her literary and personal triumphs, her life and death.
Thank you, Cai, for being in our world, and for sharing your magnificent stories with us, your many lucky and grateful readers. Bravo!
November 10, 2022
“What has more bearing, the argument you hear first, or the one you hear last? You remember better what you heard last, but isn't the first thing more indelibly etched on the brain? There must be studies."
"The past will not die. It festers in the body's cells, inflames the tissues, refuses to relinguish its grip. In the face of such intransigence, what can you do but flee?"
Blurb: Sybil White Brown returns from Boston to the small West Coast city where she once lived, hoping to heal after a terrible loss. Summoned to jury duty, she is dismayed to be assigned to the jury of a murder trial alongside her ex-husband with whom she had a rancorous divorce. As the trial progresses, she and her ex tiptoe around each other but eventually become disastrously entangled. Meanwhile, Sybil obsesses about the female defendant, whom she believes is innocent. The situation explodes during jury deliberations when Sybil comes face-to-face with her own unexpressed rage.
✂️This book was alot to take in, Sybil is a Character that you immediately get attached to and you start on this path of mental decline, thinking at first "oh yeah she's just got issues like everybody" but then diving into her tragic past and seeing how it's affecting her present and her mental health is heart breaking. The writing style of the author was really enjoyable, and the way she handled mental health is this book was very realistic. Overall this book was good and I couldn't put it down! Thank you so much @mbc_books for gifting me a copy and letting me be apart of this team!
I give LIVID by Cai Emmons ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"The past will not die. It festers in the body's cells, inflames the tissues, refuses to relinguish its grip. In the face of such intransigence, what can you do but flee?"
Blurb: Sybil White Brown returns from Boston to the small West Coast city where she once lived, hoping to heal after a terrible loss. Summoned to jury duty, she is dismayed to be assigned to the jury of a murder trial alongside her ex-husband with whom she had a rancorous divorce. As the trial progresses, she and her ex tiptoe around each other but eventually become disastrously entangled. Meanwhile, Sybil obsesses about the female defendant, whom she believes is innocent. The situation explodes during jury deliberations when Sybil comes face-to-face with her own unexpressed rage.
✂️This book was alot to take in, Sybil is a Character that you immediately get attached to and you start on this path of mental decline, thinking at first "oh yeah she's just got issues like everybody" but then diving into her tragic past and seeing how it's affecting her present and her mental health is heart breaking. The writing style of the author was really enjoyable, and the way she handled mental health is this book was very realistic. Overall this book was good and I couldn't put it down! Thank you so much @mbc_books for gifting me a copy and letting me be apart of this team!
I give LIVID by Cai Emmons ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
October 7, 2022
Another interesting book by Cai Emmons that held my interest better than Unleashed by crafting characters that are deep and interesting.
After living in Boston, Sybil White Brown returns to the small town she lived in long ago and hoped to never be in again and see the man she once loved. Now, she is called to jury duty and selected for a murder trial right with her ex-husband. She tries to keep her distance from him but the longer the trial goes, the closer they become trying to figure out the fate of the one they are sent to judge. Mixed feelings come out for Sybil as the jury deliberates and things become more and more heated.
Livid held my interest in a better way than Unleashed. These characters were engaging and the plot intriguing. I found myself engaged very quickly with what was going on and kept the pages turning. Sybil was a great female protagonist and the strained dynamic between her and her ex kept my attention. As the trial continued, the tension mounted and made the story that much better. I was pleased with this story and how it developed. Overall, it was an interesting story to enjoy for a weekend read. I recommend this book to those that enjoy legal thrillers with good characters.
I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within are my own.
After living in Boston, Sybil White Brown returns to the small town she lived in long ago and hoped to never be in again and see the man she once loved. Now, she is called to jury duty and selected for a murder trial right with her ex-husband. She tries to keep her distance from him but the longer the trial goes, the closer they become trying to figure out the fate of the one they are sent to judge. Mixed feelings come out for Sybil as the jury deliberates and things become more and more heated.
Livid held my interest in a better way than Unleashed. These characters were engaging and the plot intriguing. I found myself engaged very quickly with what was going on and kept the pages turning. Sybil was a great female protagonist and the strained dynamic between her and her ex kept my attention. As the trial continued, the tension mounted and made the story that much better. I was pleased with this story and how it developed. Overall, it was an interesting story to enjoy for a weekend read. I recommend this book to those that enjoy legal thrillers with good characters.
I received a complimentary copy of this title from the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within are my own.
January 2, 2025
Emmons has a beautiful lyric writing style and created a compelling narrative for 200 pages, but really lost me in Part 3. I felt for Sybil and the many injustices she faced, but the choice to let her sink into a full downward spiral instead of using her perspective on the situation OR the full-blown jury tampering from Elise (??) to actually benefit Jessie was strange to me. This downfall and lack of growth made Sybil feel immature with a lot of misplaced anger, which felt like a random turn, as she was developed to be a rational and analytical person.
The final attack on Drew may have technically been built up to, but I found it very surprising and out of line with Sybil’s character for the majority of the book. As a commentary on the Kavanaugh hearing, I wish there had been a conclusion that felt more true to the story and less of a shock-value twist. I think a more impactful ending would not conclude with Sybil falling apart, but show her struggle and use her time with Shawna as a reason to rise above it. I didn’t enjoy feeling so connected to a character and then ending the book disliking her so much.
The final attack on Drew may have technically been built up to, but I found it very surprising and out of line with Sybil’s character for the majority of the book. As a commentary on the Kavanaugh hearing, I wish there had been a conclusion that felt more true to the story and less of a shock-value twist. I think a more impactful ending would not conclude with Sybil falling apart, but show her struggle and use her time with Shawna as a reason to rise above it. I didn’t enjoy feeling so connected to a character and then ending the book disliking her so much.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 13, 2024
I genuinely would have gone to a 4* if the last bit wasn’t in there — it felt silly, though I understand her need to lash out for the many injustices she’s faced in her life. But why? Just move on, find peace elsewhere. But is there anywhere Sybil can even find peace? Though, I can’t say Drew didn’t deserve what happened, he’s the worst. But what was done won’t change the court of public opinion to be against him, as Sybil and the audience know. Part Two was the most impactful, but I think there could have been a better way to finish off the book. The story felt very human, in a good way. And I guess that could be why the story ends very human: not quite finished, not quite good, and not quite satisfying, tied in a bow.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 6, 2023
3.5 (how can I get the half-star in there?). There is much to admire about Livid. It took me a little bit to get into it, but when I did, I couldn't put it down. The book reminded me a little of the movie from a year or a few years back, A Promising Young Woman. That movie, too, was inspired by the Kavanaugh hearings. The writing was beautiful - I expect that from the author. At times, I wanted scenes where there were narrations of the backstory. But again, the story is compulsive, the different strands coming together in the end.
March 29, 2023
I feel pretty neutral about this book. Most of the novel takes place in a courtroom in the midst of a woman on trial for the murder of her husband. Sybil finds herself kinda luvvvvin the defendant and we aren’t sure why. Then we hear more about Sybil’s past and the trauma and pain she’s endured and and you sort of start to understand it. I loved part 2 in this book..if it didn’t have Shawna idk if it would have been as good tbh. Also fuck drew *puke*
April 21, 2024
I added at least 20 new words to my lexicon reading this book which gives both Tortured Poets Department and May December vibes. This book watches a character go too long without retribution and then careen toward an inevitable conclusion. I loved it.
a sample of the words Livid added to my Dictionary app:
- ziggurat; sessile; chthonic; zaftig; insouciance; peripatetic; proscenium; elided
4.5 stars. Half off for the ending. I'm still torn about it.
a sample of the words Livid added to my Dictionary app:
- ziggurat; sessile; chthonic; zaftig; insouciance; peripatetic; proscenium; elided
4.5 stars. Half off for the ending. I'm still torn about it.
September 22, 2022
The writing was good. I just couldn’t really engage with the characters or the plot. This was a miss for me.
Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for the early copy.
Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for the early copy.
December 7, 2022
what a interesting book dealing with a case and anger and dealing with an ex husband and learning more about her past. Overall I enjoyed this mystery kinda and issues.
December 9, 2022
A treatise on female rage and the male slights that precede it. Not the uproarious ending I was hoping for and perhaps expecting but this will be a story I think back on often.
March 23, 2025
What did I just read
January 8, 2026
i have never, cried, felt so much empathy for or felt so angry for a character. This is such a beautiful story and so well written, yet still a nice and easy read.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews