As a fan of Last Podcast on the Left, I both looked forward to reading the book by “The Boys” (Marcus Parks, Ben Kissel, and Henry Zebrowski) and also wondered how they would pull it off. The podcast is irreverent and explicit, with Parks (usually) providing the research and central narrative of a particular topic, while Ben and Henry offer asides and impressions. The good (?) news is that The Last Book on the Left essentially replicates that structure. Each chapter provides information on a serial killer (ten in all) from Marcus, while Henry and Ben exist in the margins, riffing. I enjoyed it for precisely the reasons I like the podcast–I like that they always offer a perspective or opinion, not just a list of facts. In the podcast, an example would be their dismissal of Israel Keyes as “Nu Metal” rather than the calculating, almost superhuman monster many books and shows make him out to be. That same perspective is here, most notably in their takedown of Dennis Rader (not that they celebrate any of these figures, but he holds a special place of contempt for them).
I flew through Lucy Foley’s The Guest List, which tells the story of a wedding weekend from various perspectives: the bride, the maid of honor, the best man, the plus one, and the proprietor of the estate on the isolated Irish island where the wedding is held. While the ending was a bit too neat for me, I thought Foley successfully captured the menace of the both the island and the guests. As the proprietor/wedding planner says, “Here there’s the added danger of the whole island. The wildness of this place gets under your skin. These guests will feel themselves far from the normal moral codes of society, safe from the prying eyes of others. These men are ex-public schoolboys…In my experience those who have the greatest respect for the rules also take the most enjoyment in breaking them.” My favorite character was Hannah, the plus-one, who could very easily have been a one-note caricature: she is a mom of two who has lost touch with her sense of fun, and she is insecure because she and her husband (the bride’s best friend) live much less glamorous lives than the rest of the guests. Foley does excellent work depicting how quickly distance can arise between partners, especially in an unfamiliar environment and around people from one’s past.
My favorite book of the three was Mexican Gothic, which reinvigorates the classic haunted house story by setting it in mid-twentieth century Mexico. Tasked by her father with investigating a disturbing letter from her cousin, Noemí Toboada–wealthy, young, and popular–travels to High Place, an isolated estate where Catalina (her cousin) lives with her husband, Virgil Doyle, and his family. The Doyles are English and accumulated their wealth by exploiting the land and the local workers in their mine. Like films such as Get Out, Mexican Gothic uses horror and mystery to highlight the insidious violence of racism (Catalina’s father-in-law believes in eugenics and the rest of the family, with the exception of one member, openly despises Noemí). Perhaps the greatest achievement of the novel is the characterization of Noemí herself–she is a socialite and loves clothes and cigarettes, but she is also determined to be go to university, unafraid of the strange and rude Doyles, and committed to doing right by her cousin.