04/17/2023
Williams (Tell the Machine Goodnight) delivers a clever speculative story of cloning and crime. Lou is told by a government-sponsored “replication commission” that she’s been cloned from a victim of serial killer Edward Early. With no memories of her earlier life as the doting mother and loving wife she believes herself to be, she attempts to pick up where the old Lou left off in her suburban Michigan home. Lou and replicants of Early’s other four victims meet in a support group, where they dish on the difficulties of their readjustments: they have no memory of their murders, and they distance themselves from their pre-murder personae as “my other me.” Lou, in particular, is puzzled by unexplained mysteries about her pre-clone life—turns out the old Lou’s marriage wasn’t so sunny after all—that are exacerbated after she visits Early in prison. Though she meets him in hopes he’ll explain why he picked her, his bombshell revelation is much more than what she bargained for, and it leads to a surprising denouement. Though the tone is darkly comic, Williams poses provocative questions about cloning and resurrection, and she pulls off an intelligent murder mystery to boot. This creep-fest is acerbic and disturbing in equal measure. (June)
Praise for My Murder:
“Somewhere between George Saunders’s biting social satire and Anne Tyler’s tender concern for character and consequence. . .My Murder is one of those rare emotionally intelligent books that are also fun reads, and it even manages to perform two or three plot turns that are so masterly that they would make Ira Levin blush. You can read the ending as happy — or as existential horror, as I do — but in any case it’s a book that’s going to keep readers turning pages late into the night.”— Dan Chaon, The New York Times Book Review
“Williams deftly swirls science fiction and domestic suspense plotlines into this fresh and unpredictable tale. . . Imbued with a sharp feminist consciousness, My Murder cheekily invokes and subverts the conventional serial-killer-stalking-terrified-women plot. . .Bringing together the futuristic visions of speculative fiction with the familiar tropes of domestic suspense and noir, My Murder shakes up the same-old, same-old conventions of every genre it touches and has a ton of fun doing so.” —Maureen Corrigan, The Washington Post
"Gleefully overturn(s) the age-old 'woman-in-trouble" plot. . .eerie and inventive."—NPR, Fresh Air
"An immersive literary thrill ride."—Oprah Daily
“A delightful and thought-provoking exploration of the true crime industrial complex that's not to be missed.”—Glamour, "Best Books of 2023"
"Daring. . . a fantastic thriller."—Town & Country
"Smart, scary and full of twists.” —Real Simple
“A singular voice and a winning narrative that will stay with you for days.” —BookPage
“A clever speculative story of cloning and crime…Though the tone is darkly comic, Williams poses provocative questions about cloning and resurrection, and she pulls off an intelligent murder mystery to boot. This creep-fest is acerbic and disturbing in equal measure.”—Publishers Weekly
“With this suspenseful, smart sophomore effort—a briskly paced story with charming characters at its core—Williams again imagines a near-futuristic, science-altered reality that offers an intriguing perspective on the push-pull of family and freedom…[A]n intelligent, insightful murder mystery that illuminates her imagined world and our own.” —Kirkus Reviews, STARRED review
"Startling and original, My Murder is a gripping speculative twist on the crime novel."—Paula Hawkins, #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Girl on the Train
“Captivating and provocative, My Murder is at once a tense mystery and a bracing take on the realities of early motherhood. As Jessamine Chan does in The School for Good Mothers, Katie Williams looks at where society's fixation on women's bodies and minds might take us in the near future, to chilling effect. It's a sinister, daring thriller, with an absolute corker of an ending that I never saw coming.” —Flynn Berry, New York Times bestselling author of Northern Spy
“Katie Williams’ My Murder is a sly, captivating twister of a novel. Darkly funny, deeply scary and utterly original, it will keep you guessing until its final, haunting pages.”—Megan Abbott, New York Times-bestselling author of The Turnout
"I couldn't have inhaled My Murder more ravenously. Beautifully written, eerie, and darkly comic, with an irresistible premise flawlessly executed… My Murder is a revelation." —Katie Gutierrez, author of More Than You’ll Ever Know
“Confident, hypnotic and original… Katie Williams brilliantly executes a smart, speculative twist on domestic suspense, and it makes for a completely absorbing ride.” —Ashley Audrain, New York Times-bestselling author of The Push
“When did I last read a thriller this cool, this confident? This clever? A novel so hard-charging yet light on its feet? But best and most of all, this book is F-U-N. Once you've turned the final page, after you've read that amazingly poignant final line, you can marvel at the invention and brio of My Murder; in the heady moment, though, you'll be enjoying yourself far too much.” —A. J. Finn, author of The Woman in the Window
★ 06/09/2023
In the near-future of this speculative story, Louise is still acclimating to her new life. She is one of five women who were murdered by a serial killer and brought back to life as a clone. She is in a similar body, although less physically scarred, and has all the memories of her previous life except for the murder and a short time before it. Louise attends weekly support group sessions with the other murder victims and tries to be a good wife and mother to her baby. She's also back at her job, offering virtual reality therapy. When she has the opportunity to meet with her murderer, however, she learns more than expected, and it sends her reeling and questioning the life she was starting to settle into. Williams's (Tell the Machine Goodnight) writing is delightfully quirky, clever, and often breathtakingly observant as she chronicles Louise's past and present through her clone, who has to try to fit into a life that she mostly remembers but didn't physically live through. VERDICT Combining elements of dystopian fiction, psychological suspense, and mystery, this is a wonderfully incisive and intriguing novel that defies genres and invites contemplation. Perfect for book groups.—Melissa DeWild
★ 2023-04-24
A young wife, mother, and serial-killer victim seeks answers after she is brought back by cloning.
In Williams’ adult debut, Tell the Machine Goodnight (2018), a Kirkus Prize finalist, the author cleverly conjured a near future in which technology could both remove us from and deliver us back to ourselves and one another. With this suspenseful, smart sophomore effort—a briskly paced story with charming characters at its core—Williams again imagines a near-futuristic, science-altered reality that offers an intriguing perspective on the push-pull of family and freedom. Lou, a 30-ish wife and mother of a 9-month-old daughter, whose work entails offering therapeutic hugs to people in a virtual reality setting, returns to her old life along with several other victims of a serial killer thanks to a controversial government cloning program. As Lou struggles to readjust following her murder, supported by her sweet, supportive husband, Silas, she finds herself dogged by lacunae in her memory: How, exactly, did her murder go down? What happened in the hours leading up to and just after it? And how does she, ostensibly the same woman in a replicated body, differ from the woman she was before? With other members of her serial killer survivors’ group, cloned women who convene weekly to process their emotions and experiences, Lou goes in search of answers. The search propels her—and us—along unpredictable paths to destinations that shed light not only on Lou’s life choices, but also those we all face.
Williams has delivered an intelligent, insightful murder mystery that illuminates her imagined world and our own.
Narrator Rebecca Lowman's pace works well to start off this unique audio mystery. Listeners need her slow delivery to digest that Lou, a murder victim, has, in fact, been brought back to life and is now investigating the circumstances of her own death. Lowman is especially talented at bringing out the fun and the lyricism in the author's language. Sadly, Lowman's tendency to elongate even the shortest of words slows down the story just when its plot twists ramp up. Nonetheless, there's an easygoing authenticity to her performance that will make listeners root for Lou to uncover the truth about her death. J.T. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Narrator Rebecca Lowman's pace works well to start off this unique audio mystery. Listeners need her slow delivery to digest that Lou, a murder victim, has, in fact, been brought back to life and is now investigating the circumstances of her own death. Lowman is especially talented at bringing out the fun and the lyricism in the author's language. Sadly, Lowman's tendency to elongate even the shortest of words slows down the story just when its plot twists ramp up. Nonetheless, there's an easygoing authenticity to her performance that will make listeners root for Lou to uncover the truth about her death. J.T. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
