Debra Jo Immergut

Frank Lundquist used to be a well regarded psychologist. Being the son of the man who invented the method used by all psychologists to measure potential in children (and patient zero of the method) had not harmed his prospects either. Until he misses the signs in a very troubled child and the story ends in a tragedy. Anyone else would have lost any chance for future work in the field but at least partially because of his father, Frank ends up working as one of the psychologists in a state correctional facility - passing the time and feeling sorry for himself. Until his high school crush Miranda walks through his door - locked up for a heinous crime. And that changes everything.

The chapters alternate between Frank's story and Miranda's story. Before long we learn that what we are reading on Frank's side is a diary, written much later. Which causes occasional issues in the narrative - as both he and Miranda keep secrets from each other, the lack of anticipation when writing in the future does not ring completely true - no matter how much you try, something always slips when you know what is coming - a throwaway line somewhere, changing your own remembered thoughts so you do not look like an idiot, something. The lack of that makes the novel feel a bit lifeless in places - as if it is using the surprises to further the plot instead if integrating them in it.

The expected story here is clear - Miranda is innocent, Frank helps her prove that and gets redeemed that way. Debra Jo Immergut throws away the expectation and goes into a totally different direction. Which saves the novel - had she gone where she was expected to go, the novel would have lost all of its power and became one of the many with a similar plot. Where the writing shines though is the background - Frank's brother and father should have sounded like a cliche but they worked (it also helps that both Frank and Miranda are unreliable narrators who plainly tell us they lied earlier more than once).

It is a slow novel - we spend more time in the characters' heads and their backgrounds than in the story itself. In places that gets a bit annoying - the transitions to the flashbacks are not always clean enough and some of it felt like filler - trying to make it long enough to qualify as a novel. By the end the pace and the story make more sense and work somewhat but it is also easily identifiable as an early (in this case debut) novel - there is a rawness and an attempt to say too much in some places that usually disappears as the author gets more experience (at least with the good authors).

The novel got a nomination for first novel in the 2019 Edgar Awards. That surprised me a bit - I found the novel a bit too flawed for a nomination. But I can see what they saw in it - it is unusual and the deliberate decision not to go where everyone expected the author to go and pulling that off without making it sound artificial is impressive for a first novel. I plan to check what Immergut publishes next (or had published in the meantime) - there is a something in the style that works despite the flaws.… (meer)

The Bad Psychologist

Women’s prisons seem all the rage these days; witness Orange Is the New Black’s success and the recent Mars Room (a better choice, by the way). Here we have another one, a psychological thriller featuring a psychologist, and quite a flawed practitioner at that.

The gist of it is, psychologist Frank Lundquist finds himself pretty much at the end of his career almost before it has begun. He made a bad diagnostic/judgement call concerning a child patient who turned out to be a kiddie psychopath who killed his sister. What’s worse, he’s the son of a famous, highly respected, and very influential psychologist father. Literally, the man wrote the book on childhood development and Frank served as the subject and later benchmark. You’ll agree being the scion of a landmark researcher and the very yardstick by which parents and doctors judge growing children places a heavy burden on a person. You’re always striving to please your father, live up to his reputation, while you hit all the benchmarks that validate his research. When you fall, you fall very hard. And Frank, always the insecure and diffident type, falls harder than most. Then one day in the dank women’s prison in which he works, who shows up as a prisoner but the girl he dreamed about in high school, the girl who never noticed his pining heart, Miranda. She brings back all his urges and desires and punctuates with new intensity the dismal state of his life.

Miranda is in for fifty plus years for murder, the deceased being her boyfriend who involved her in a crazy scheme to get rich instantly, then betrayed her twice in the process. She’s the bad girl who began as a very good girl. Her dad served a term as a congressman, until he lost the support of the big backer with money. So desperate for the man’s approval, support, and money, he kowtowed when this man was responsible for the accidental death of his other daughter, Amy, Miranda’s older and admired sister. This incident and her father’s spinelessness drove her off the rails and into the arms of boys and men who weren’t any good for her. Last stop, Milford Basin state prison for women. She seeks psychological help in prison as a prelude to drugged suicide and meets Frank Lundquist. The question becomes, does she recognize him?

Because for certain, obsessive that he is, he sure recognizes her and derives pleasure from treating her, without acknowledging he knows her, let alone that all these long years he has desired her. And then he hatches a plan, a plan of desperation, a plan that only a man who believes he has reached bottom would conceive and possibly think might work. That is, he dreams up a way to spring her and spirit her away to another, full life with him. Therein lies the twisty road of improbabilities meant to surprise and titillate the reader. But as improbabilities go, these hang together quite well because there’s a little bit of plausibility in them. There’s even a bittersweet payoff at the end, solace for the lovelorn Frank.

The Captives isn’t terrible but it isn’t spellbinding either. The idea of whether Miranda is using Frank or is Frank’s dupe just isn’t enough to move it along at a quick pace. Plodding probably best describes it.… (meer)

I wanted to like this book. The premise is interesting, and I thought it would be full of twists and unsettling moments, but a lot of the time, it just seemed confusing. It does have a very unreliable narrator, so that could be part of it, but I struggled to follow the story at times and had a hard time keeping track of who was who and what was actually happening. I went into it expecting something with a Twilight Zone vibe, but finished the book feeling bewildered and a little bit cheated out of time I could have spent on something better. I did like a lot of the ideas presented in the book, and the possibilities of what it could have been, so I can see myself trying something else by this author in the future.… (meer)