Review of I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai
Viking, 2023
On the surface, Rebecca Makkai’s latest novel looks like another addition to the true crime genre, an appearance reinforced by the fact that the main character runs a podcast devoted to true crime. Bodie Kane is one of two co-hosts of Starlet Fever, an exploration of famous actresses from Hollywood’s past and the ways in which men within that system mistreated them. She wants to set the record straight. One of her former high school classmates now teaches at Granby, the boarding school they attended together, and invites her to teach two two-week classes on podcasting and film studies. Her return to the school opens another case that seems right out of true crime, as one of her students works on a podcast investigating the death of one of Bodie’s classmates.
Thalia was killed in the spring of her Senior year, and, while the police have arrested a man for that murder, Britt, the student, thinks they have the wrong man. A number of others on the internet have their doubts, as well. The more Britt and her classmates dig into the facts, and the more Bodie thinks about that evening years ago, Bodie begins to have her doubts, as well. Not surprisingly, Granby was a predominantly white institution, and Omar, the man arrested for Thalia’s death, is an African American male who worked in the athletic building, but who wasn’t a teacher.
As with many works from the true crime genre, Makkai leads readers in different directions, as Britt and the students have their theories, while Bodie is convinced of one of her own. Most of the people who were involved with that evening want nothing to do with it, so the students and Bodie have to get creative in finding information, even using a few methods that Bodie’s not particularly proud of. The two-week class turns into a multi-year project and a podcast of its own, ultimately leading to a hearing to determine if there’s enough evidence for a new trial.
However, while Makkai has certainly created a compelling storyline that rivals any true crime story, hers is, of course, completely fictional. That doesn’t mean her story isn’t telling the truth, though. Makkai’s real purpose is to expose the patriarchal structures that women have to navigate on a daily basis and the real risks to their safety that come up again and again. She explores the microaggressions and the murders by showing what has changed since Brodie was in school and what hasn’t.
Viking, 2023
On the surface, Rebecca Makkai’s latest novel looks like another addition to the true crime genre, an appearance reinforced by the fact that the main character runs a podcast devoted to true crime. Bodie Kane is one of two co-hosts of Starlet Fever, an exploration of famous actresses from Hollywood’s past and the ways in which men within that system mistreated them. She wants to set the record straight. One of her former high school classmates now teaches at Granby, the boarding school they attended together, and invites her to teach two two-week classes on podcasting and film studies. Her return to the school opens another case that seems right out of true crime, as one of her students works on a podcast investigating the death of one of Bodie’s classmates.
Thalia was killed in the spring of her Senior year, and, while the police have arrested a man for that murder, Britt, the student, thinks they have the wrong man. A number of others on the internet have their doubts, as well. The more Britt and her classmates dig into the facts, and the more Bodie thinks about that evening years ago, Bodie begins to have her doubts, as well. Not surprisingly, Granby was a predominantly white institution, and Omar, the man arrested for Thalia’s death, is an African American male who worked in the athletic building, but who wasn’t a teacher.
As with many works from the true crime genre, Makkai leads readers in different directions, as Britt and the students have their theories, while Bodie is convinced of one of her own. Most of the people who were involved with that evening want nothing to do with it, so the students and Bodie have to get creative in finding information, even using a few methods that Bodie’s not particularly proud of. The two-week class turns into a multi-year project and a podcast of its own, ultimately leading to a hearing to determine if there’s enough evidence for a new trial.
However, while Makkai has certainly created a compelling storyline that rivals any true crime story, hers is, of course, completely fictional. That doesn’t mean her story isn’t telling the truth, though. Makkai’s real purpose is to expose the patriarchal structures that women have to navigate on a daily basis and the real risks to their safety that come up again and again. She explores the microaggressions and the murders by showing what has changed since Brodie was in school and what hasn’t.
One of the most effective ways Makkai reminds readers of the frequency of attacks on women comes on the first page of the novel. Makkai begins with,
“‘You’ve heard of her,’ I say—a challenge, an assurance. To the woman on the neighboring hotel barstool who made the mistake of striking up a conversation, to the dentist who runs out of questions about my kids and asks what I’ve been up to myself.
Sometimes they know her right away. Sometimes they ask, ‘Wasn’t that the one where the guy kept her in the basement?’
No! No. It was not.
Wasn’t it the one where she was stabbed in—no. The one where she got in a cab with—different girl. The one where she went to the frat party, the one where he used a stick, the one where he used a hammer, the one where she picked him up from rehab and he—no.”
This list continues, as Makkai drives home the point that these murders happen with such frequency that those who aren’t paying attention can’t keep them straight. Even when people do remember Thalia, she is “now but a story, a story to know or not know, a story with a limited set of details, a story to master by memorizing maps and timelines.” Even when people do remember these murdered women, they become nothing more than one piece of narrative information in a world that inundates us with them. Those true crime stories become nothing more than details, maps, and timelines; the women get lost in the fascination.
Makkai focuses as much on the smaller, more regular abuses that girls and women endure day after day. A minor example comes when Bodie as an adult meets various people who are now working at Granby. At almost every event or in each encounter, somebody, usually a man asks who’s watching her kids while she’s out of town for a couple of weeks. Nobody asks Jerome, her soon-to-be ex-husband who’s also an artist, or Lance, her co-host on Starlet Fever, that question when they travel. Makkai also uses what Bodie and others experienced during their years at the boarding school to reiterate this idea. She tells about Dorian Culler, who repeatedly exposed himself to Bodie, while pretending she was the one interested in him and he needed to repel her advances, and who also told what he called Thalia jokes, which were the stereotypical dumb blonde jokes repurposed. Thalia’s boyfriend and the other boys did nothing to stop anything he did.
In fact, Makkai shows how such an approach to masculinity affected the boys who didn’t fit this mold, as well. When she’s back on campus for the podcasting class, one of the boys behaves in a more traditionally feminine manner. Bodie thinks, “I tried to imagine a boy doing that in the ‘90s, and all I could think of was the freshman everyone called ‘the Oklahomo,’ whose dormmates duct-taped him naked to a Couchman pillar in the middle of a lightning storm. I was only mildly horrified at the time; it just seemed like standard hijinks, and the other boys barely got in trouble. He didn’t return the next year.” Makkai uses such stories as background to set up the connection to the contemporary setting, as she doesn’t let the twenty-first century off the hook. It’s not as if such behavior has gone away, as she points out with a clear reference to Donald Trump: “The news story, which I couldn’t avoid even when I wasn’t online. Another woman had come forward. The president called her a dog.” Such an approach makes it appear that Makkai is setting up a straw man of toxic masculinity that is easy to spot and despise.
However, she complicates matters through a sub-plot involving Jerome. While she is at Granby, he has become the subject of a performance art piece by a woman he dated years ago, in which she calls out his bad treatment of her. Bodie doesn’t think that accusation is on the same level as what other women have suffered, though, as the description sounds like he was simply a bad boyfriend. However, he was significantly older than the woman—who was in her early twenties at the time—and he was much more powerful than her in the art world. Those online call Bodie out for her support of long-dead Hollywood starlets, but not of a living woman, questioning her commitment to protect women.
Makkai leaves it unclear whether his behavior is as vile as some of the other men, which is her point. Similarly, Bodie and other characters admit that behavior that they accepted in the 1990s wouldn’t be accepted now, for both good and ill. They understand that boundaries change based on people’s growth, but they also understand that it’s possible to go too far and shut down people for behavior that nobody would have condemned at the time. Jerome’s behavior seems to be nothing more than being a bad boyfriend, but seems is always the key in such situations.
Rebecca Makkai has written a novel that raises questions about masculinity, internet culture, true crime, feminism, privilege, and justice, but doesn’t provide any answers, as good novels are wont to do. The impressive part is that she has done all of that, while telling a compelling story with characters readers care about. Readers will want to turn the page, not to find out about one more murder or microaggression, but to see what happens to Bodie and her classmates and students. Hopefully, they’ll see the world differently by the time they find out what has happened, as well.
“‘You’ve heard of her,’ I say—a challenge, an assurance. To the woman on the neighboring hotel barstool who made the mistake of striking up a conversation, to the dentist who runs out of questions about my kids and asks what I’ve been up to myself.
Sometimes they know her right away. Sometimes they ask, ‘Wasn’t that the one where the guy kept her in the basement?’
No! No. It was not.
Wasn’t it the one where she was stabbed in—no. The one where she got in a cab with—different girl. The one where she went to the frat party, the one where he used a stick, the one where he used a hammer, the one where she picked him up from rehab and he—no.”
This list continues, as Makkai drives home the point that these murders happen with such frequency that those who aren’t paying attention can’t keep them straight. Even when people do remember Thalia, she is “now but a story, a story to know or not know, a story with a limited set of details, a story to master by memorizing maps and timelines.” Even when people do remember these murdered women, they become nothing more than one piece of narrative information in a world that inundates us with them. Those true crime stories become nothing more than details, maps, and timelines; the women get lost in the fascination.
Makkai focuses as much on the smaller, more regular abuses that girls and women endure day after day. A minor example comes when Bodie as an adult meets various people who are now working at Granby. At almost every event or in each encounter, somebody, usually a man asks who’s watching her kids while she’s out of town for a couple of weeks. Nobody asks Jerome, her soon-to-be ex-husband who’s also an artist, or Lance, her co-host on Starlet Fever, that question when they travel. Makkai also uses what Bodie and others experienced during their years at the boarding school to reiterate this idea. She tells about Dorian Culler, who repeatedly exposed himself to Bodie, while pretending she was the one interested in him and he needed to repel her advances, and who also told what he called Thalia jokes, which were the stereotypical dumb blonde jokes repurposed. Thalia’s boyfriend and the other boys did nothing to stop anything he did.
In fact, Makkai shows how such an approach to masculinity affected the boys who didn’t fit this mold, as well. When she’s back on campus for the podcasting class, one of the boys behaves in a more traditionally feminine manner. Bodie thinks, “I tried to imagine a boy doing that in the ‘90s, and all I could think of was the freshman everyone called ‘the Oklahomo,’ whose dormmates duct-taped him naked to a Couchman pillar in the middle of a lightning storm. I was only mildly horrified at the time; it just seemed like standard hijinks, and the other boys barely got in trouble. He didn’t return the next year.” Makkai uses such stories as background to set up the connection to the contemporary setting, as she doesn’t let the twenty-first century off the hook. It’s not as if such behavior has gone away, as she points out with a clear reference to Donald Trump: “The news story, which I couldn’t avoid even when I wasn’t online. Another woman had come forward. The president called her a dog.” Such an approach makes it appear that Makkai is setting up a straw man of toxic masculinity that is easy to spot and despise.
However, she complicates matters through a sub-plot involving Jerome. While she is at Granby, he has become the subject of a performance art piece by a woman he dated years ago, in which she calls out his bad treatment of her. Bodie doesn’t think that accusation is on the same level as what other women have suffered, though, as the description sounds like he was simply a bad boyfriend. However, he was significantly older than the woman—who was in her early twenties at the time—and he was much more powerful than her in the art world. Those online call Bodie out for her support of long-dead Hollywood starlets, but not of a living woman, questioning her commitment to protect women.
Makkai leaves it unclear whether his behavior is as vile as some of the other men, which is her point. Similarly, Bodie and other characters admit that behavior that they accepted in the 1990s wouldn’t be accepted now, for both good and ill. They understand that boundaries change based on people’s growth, but they also understand that it’s possible to go too far and shut down people for behavior that nobody would have condemned at the time. Jerome’s behavior seems to be nothing more than being a bad boyfriend, but seems is always the key in such situations.
Rebecca Makkai has written a novel that raises questions about masculinity, internet culture, true crime, feminism, privilege, and justice, but doesn’t provide any answers, as good novels are wont to do. The impressive part is that she has done all of that, while telling a compelling story with characters readers care about. Readers will want to turn the page, not to find out about one more murder or microaggression, but to see what happens to Bodie and her classmates and students. Hopefully, they’ll see the world differently by the time they find out what has happened, as well.