Kimberly McCreight's first novel, "Reconstructing Amelia," which I enjoyed, for the most part, petered out at the end, by copping out on the build-up given to the reader throughout. The ending left me unsatisfied, or, feeling, to quote Peggy Lee, "Is that all there is?????"
No one throws surprises to the reader, like Kimberly McCreight. There were things here I did not see coming, even though I knew where the book was basically going. If ever a film is made of this, it should have Kathryn Morris and Danny Pino reprising their "Cold Case" roles, because with its dissection of both past and present, it reads like an episode of that bygone series, and as a movie, should play like one.
Kimberly McCreight's riff is on the Amy Grossberg-Brian Peterson case. Twenty years ago, this year--can you believe how fast the time has flown, girls??????--those two kids, from Wyckoff, New Jersey, delivered a baby they conceived in the bedroom of the Comfort Inn, leaving it dead and dumped in the wastebasket. Amy's mother did not even know she was pregnant, because Amy hid it in bulky dress--but, still, what kind of mother was Amy's, to begin with??????? I mean, come on???????? And Brian, what a dick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The baby suffered shaking and blunt force trauma to the head, so, despite the couple's claims it was alive when they left it--as if abandoning a living newborn in a sleazy motel--and if it was in Newark, then, it WAS a sleazy motel!!!!!!!!--is a form of redemption--I think not--they both got prison sentences. Amy's was longer, and Brian's less, but both should have done Life Without Parole. Now, Brian lives the straight life in Florida--well, maybe he deserves it, Florida, home of skin cancer and serial killers is just what is fit for trash like him, while sociopath Amy has to live with her parents, who watch over her mental instability, and enable her by thinking she is being productive in producing a greeting card line, Oh, brother! Give me a break!!!!!!!!! What is going to happen to Amy, once her parents depart? Have provisions been made? Too bad Greystone doesn't exist anymore. Where is its Jersey equivalent? That is where Amy eventually will end up!!!!!!!!! Bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But back to Kimberly's novel, which, besides being a thriller one cannot tear the eyes from, is an insightful look into the darker elements of American suburban hypocrisy. You will be amazed at who the Brian and Amy figures turn out to be, and who the monsters really are,
My biggest complaint--don't read further if you plan to indulge!--is that one character, Barbara Carson, was not given a satisfactory enough comeuppance. And, at the bar, the night Jenna Mendelssohn is last seen alive, who was the other woman with her? Barbara? Stella?
Was Jenna's death an accident, or did one of these ladies kill her? I have my ideas, but, if you have read it, darlings, you tell me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't wait for Kimberly McCreight's next book. But she needs to work on those lose ends!
Perhaps she could start, by reading "Clarissa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
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