Questions without answers
A boarding-school whodunnit keeps readers guessing
In her much lauded “The Great Believers,” Rebecca Makkai immersed us in the AIDS epidemic. In her new book “I Have Some Questions for You,” she concentrates on social issues such as #MeToo and racism while situating us into boarding school life, and the all-too-common scandals associated with them. In this deft murder-mystery, the scandal is the two-decade-old drowning murder of Thalia Keith, the protagonist Bodie Kane’s former roommate.
Ms. Makkai is accurate in her description of the New Hampshire boarding school: “Back at Granby, everything was still — a snow globe no one had shaken in days.” Ms. Makkai goes on to detail a shed where Thalia and her boyfriend met to make out, and a place in the woods where students hosted mattress parties, recalling the forest- cave scenes from “Dead Poets Society.”
Bodie, now a nationally renowned podcaster and alumnus, is back on campus two decades later to teach a twoweek “mini-mester” podcasting class. During a class, her student, Britt, nudges Bodie to further explore Thalia’s murder because Britt believes “the wrong guy is in prison.”
That wrong guy is Omar Evans, the Black athletic trainer. Bodie is pleased that Britt pushes her “to look at the case with fresh eyes [because] the story [she] knew had never felt right.” We know that two decades earlier, someone had fractured Thalia’s skull and drowned her in the school pool. The police believe Omar was the guilty person, but Omar’s 15hour police interrogation was not recorded. Britt believes “[he] was a victim of an inexperienced and racist small-town police force.”
The author incorporates several narrative techniques to create conflict, provide contrastand enter her characters’ minds, including transcripts of Britt’s podcast, Thalia’s yearbook and planner entries, texts, Facebook posts, a vitriolic second person telling and Reddit strings.
Through flashbacks, we get to know Thalia, a slight young woman who was mysterious and attractive. She commanded the attention of the boys … and teachers. We learn that Thalia spent a lot of time with Mr. Evans and on a trip to Manhattan Bodie witnessed Thalia and Mr. Bloch, the music teacher whom Bodie does not trust with Thalia, “sitting way too close — legs toward each other, touching at the ankle.” On another occasion, Bodie viewed Thalia, circling a dumpster, dazed, in “bare feet, boxers, [and] a T-shirt.”
Ms. Makkai adroitly peels back Bodie’s cover as teacher and podcaster to reveal why she is so guarded. Before enrolling in Granby, Bodie’s brother killed her father and then fell to his own death, rendering her mother mentally unstable and unable to care for her. Today, Bodie shares custody of her two children with her ex-partner, an artist who is in the middle of an ugly #MeToo imbroglio.
Like any good detective, Ms. Makkai presents several
scenarios to her readers. She makes a case for one character as the killer before an unexpected reveal, showcasing Ms. Makkai’s ability to write a bona fide whodunnit.
Bodie believed she was going back to Granby to teach a short class, but it turns out that she went back for much more. Ms. Makkai’s poignant mediation on memory and loss is distinguished by clear prose, memorable (and flawed) characters and detailed murder scenarios. “I Have Some Questions for You” may not answer all our questions, but Ms. Makkai trusts us to arrive at our own conclusions.