Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours.
He knows what he's done, and now awaits the same fate he forced on those girls, years ago. Ansel doesn't want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood.
But this is not his story.
As the clock ticks down, three women uncover the history of a tragedy and the long shadow it casts. Lavender, Ansel's mother, is a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation. Hazel, twin sister to his wife, is forced to watch helplessly as the relationship threatens to devour them all. And Saffy, the detective hot on his trail, is devoted to bringing bad men to justice but struggling to see her own life clearly.
This is the story of the women left behind.
Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes On An Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our cultural obsession with crime stories, and asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the minds of violent men.
An extraordinary and engrossing read
Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka is an extraordinary read and will be one of those books that will stay with me long after I've turned the final page.
Ostensibly, it's the story of a convicted murderer, Ansel Packer, who is facing the final half-day of his life on death row in Texas. However, Notes on an Execution is so much more than the story of a depraved criminal and his crimes - so, so much more. At a meta level, it asks us to consider our fascination, as a society, with true crime, especially serial murderers and aberrant offenders. Why does society bestow on these people a type of spurious glamour? Why is it that we remember the name of the killer, rather than those of his (or, as is very occasionally the case, her) victims?
As Ansel Packer's misused life draws inexorably to a close, we're drawn aside into the stories of three women whose lives are inextricably woven with his. Each of these narrative threads is engrossing in its own right, but read together they convey a haunting tale of love and loss, regret and absolution, hope and despair. Danya Kukafka explores themes including domestic abuse, sibling dynamics (between twins particularly), self-actualisation, the search for belonging, and reconciliation with oneself and others.
Danya Kukafka's prose combines a lyrical beauty with a sometimes stark and (appropriately) confronting frankness.
Notes on an Execution is undoubtedly one of my reading highlights of 2022 so far, and I'd highly recommend it to lovers of literary fiction, women's fiction and crime fiction (although it's not a mystery or thriller in the traditional sense). It would also be a stimulating read for those who have a personal or professional interest in criminology and/or victimology.
Sarah, 04/04/2022
