Country: USA
Genre: Literary/Noir
Pages: 246
This book has been burning my fingertips since it's been first announced by its publisher. I'm not sure why, but I took forever before sitting my ass down and read it. That happens whenever I have huge expectations about something. I tend to stew in my anticipation a little bit. What attracted me to this book first? It's apocalypse title, sure. But also the contrasting cover and Megan Abbott's reputation for fearless writing. The themes also. Innocence, happiness, quiet suburban living. For a reputable noir writer, those are some of the most challenging, yet interesting themes you can work with. I got my theories about happy people and Megan Abbott's novel confirms them. You can't be too happy. If you are, you're fucked up and you're hiding something very dark under all that happiness. Did THE END OF EVERYTHING lived up to my expectations? Oh hell yes, and it even went a little further.
The narrator of THE END OF EVERYTHING is thirteen years old Lizzie Hood. She's best friends with her neighbor Evie Verver and that friendship means the world to her. It defines her. She even says that she's "body close" with Evie and sometimes looks on her own body for the field hockey scars that are on Evie's. The kind of friendship that can only start in a sandbox, at a very young age. But the beautiful thing is that Evie's friendship goes beyond her, for Lizzie. The Verver's backyard is an avatar of paradise for her. Evie's older sister Dusty is a mysterious reflection of their future lives, boiling with possibilities and Evie's dad is the embodiment of everything she ever desired in a man. Am I sounding fucked up yet? Great, because whatever your answer it, it's just the beginning. Evie disappears one day and cuts Lizzie off her half-life. She will fight for her friend and for the world as she knew it.
I think only a woman could have pulled such a novel without being called a pervert or a seriously twisted individual. Because it is disturbing, uncomfortable and fucked-up, yet it's about a young girl growing up into adulthood and it sounds more realistic than what I ever read on the subject (not that I'm some sort of expect female teenagehood). It's Lizzie that seems the most hurt by Evie's disappearance. Sure, her parents are sad and yet they cry inside their house and show a well-studied appearance to their neighbors. If you look at the bigger picture, it's Lizzie who will step forward, ask the right questions and move the case forward because she's missing the biggest part of her life. Her whole world. That's efficient crime fiction for you. The micromanagement of the big picture. You get inside the head of somebody at a crossroads in their lives and the extreme decisions they'll have to take personally with affect the lives of everybody around them. Abbott understands and applies this principle with lean and economic prose.
Think about Megan Abbott (well, THE END OF EVERYTHING, I have unfortunately NOT read anything else by her. Her novels are not that easy to find in Canada) as a female pendant to Dennis Lehane. She's focusing on the human drama behind the sordid and her stories are only gaining strength from that strategy. It's a self-sufficient cycle, you know? Things get really messed up, then it affects people so much they poke and prod and make things even messier. Yeah, I loved everything about THE END OF EVERYTHING. It's short, but it knows when to end (the ending is beautiful in its own way), it's lead by a weaker protagonist, but people trust her and let her into the darkest corners of their hearts. If I had a seal of approval, I'd stamp it over this bad boy in a heart beat. You're going to see it on the Hemingwettes ceremony at the end of the year. Read THE END OF EVERYTHING and get ready to get you ass kicked by a girl.