Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Caroline Kepnes, Simon & Schuster, $19.99.
An unsettling account of inexorable, frightening treachery, Kepnes’ You is a thriller more aberrantly astute and perilously warped than you have ever read.
A rare crime page-turner, this is a story of a creepy bookstore employee named Joe Goldberg, who stalks and seduces Guinevere Beck, a vulnerable young New York writer.
Instantly smitten, Joe cascades into a world that is of his own making. The story is Joe’s internal monologue. There’s more to Joe than Beck realises and much more to Beck than her perfect façade. The compulsive relationship quickly swirls into a hurricane of lethal consequences.
“Kepnes turns romantic-comedy tropes on their head, and makes Joe weirdly appealing at the same time.” It has perspective, knee-jerk reaction and perception into the nature of fixation. It’s mesmerising, at times exciting, but above all slightly scary.
Serial killers seem to always be in the public consciousness, but Kepnes is resolute that when she began writing You, serial killers was a topic that was furthest from her mind.
It’s as if she draws a line to say ‘Joe is fiction’. Just because it’s a phrase that’s not used, doesn’t mean the connotation is not there. Just because you don’t use that phrase while writing, doesn’t mean the thought is not there. Saying he just killed a few different people, doesn’t count.
Living in the world with social media and countless images, it starts to feel like nothing is real. Why is Beck drawn to him? How is it that Joe is convinced of his moral goodness? Do we want to believe that bookish sweetness is real? He’s a voyeur and Beck wants to be seen.
The first novel from Los Angles-based author was translated into 19 languages. You came into its own after it premiered on Netflix, becoming a huge hit.
Now just like Beck herself, we can’t get away from Joe Goldberg.
