From Publishers Weekly
Katherine Shea, a highly intelligent 23-year-old, may be the most unusual protagonist in recent fiction. After returning from a self-guided year of study in Italy, Katherine takes up with Boris, a middle-aged Russian novelist. When her affair with Boris bores her, Katherine escapes to Maine and then to Arizona, where she finds a box of bones bequeathed to her by her deranged mother. She continues to travel, but everywhere she goes, the people she meets end up dying. Reader Hoopes captures Boris's dolorous Russian accent and also the Maine burr and Southern twang of Katherine's subsequent lovers. But her biggest achievement is Katherine, an untethered and unreliable narrator. Hoopes's subtle rendering of Katherine's wily intelligence is impressive given how much Katherine conceals while she ingenuously relates her story. As the book wanders into stranger territory, Katherine distracts her audience with long, scholarly asides about art, literature, history and mythology, all dealing with a common theme: cannibalism. Hoopes tackles these passages with ease, adopting a haughty French accent for Katherine's rendition of the
Tale of Bisclaveret and a macabre Italian voice for the
Inferno's Count Ugolino. That Katherine's great secret remains inscrutable until the very end is a testament to Hoopes's light-handed interpretation of this twisted tale.
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As provocative as the title may be, the novel is more so. Katherine seems bored even though her place in the world is precarious; she seems composed even though episodes would prove otherwise. As she makes her way across North America, so does a chain of bizarre murders that cut a frightening swath of carnage. Punctuated by almost clinical accounts of cannibalistic moments in history, this chilling story can veer sharply between being intriguing and leaving one cold. Wendy Hoopes captures the removed, almost otherworldly, quality of the novel's storyteller, whose carnivorous interests take a sinister turn. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine--
Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
