While
I already count myself as a Marietta Miles fan from my reading of Route 12, her
first book, nothing prepared me for her follow-up offering, May. This is an
atmospheric masterpiece that painted my soul in a muted grey and left me
praying she comes out with her next book very soon. This book dripped with a
depressive, bleak feeling of imminent danger. Each page you turn forces you
into a gloomier, darker, more ominous state of being. In other words, this is
one of the finest books I have read in a long while.
Told
in two parts, with May is a young girl and as an older battle-scarred caretaker
of an island being closed down due to an impending storm, both narratives
provide us glimpses of a severely broken and damaged soul.
The
initial narrative offers the reader a glimpse of May’s early life. May was
raised in a time where becoming pregnant without a husband at an early age is
the sign of deviancy and when May finds herself impregnated during high school,
she soon finds herself abandoned by her parents; left to live with her free-spirited
aunt.
The
second narrative follows May, beaten down by life and appearing to be on the
run from parts of her life we are not yet privy to, as she traverses the island
where she lives and works as a caretaker, shuttering homes and prepping them to
weather the powerful storm set to slam the island. But she is also running from
something or someone from her past. Around every corner are reminders of a life
which went off the rails and left her with deep scars; but these scars may just
be scabbed over wounds that are about to be reopened.
This
book is extremely well-written. Each page and paragraph are stripped down to
their barest elements and bring elicit feelings of dread and anticipation in
readers. Miles has a knack for penning stories that keep me turning the pages
at a finger burning pace. While Route 12 showed the promise Miles holds as an
author, Miles has outdone herself with this novella. The tension she creates
throughout this book is so heavy and thick you can cut it with a knife.
Impossible to put down, this book is going to grab you by the throat and slowly
squeeze; always allowing you enough air to keep breathing, but never enough to
allow you to forget you are in its grips. Sweetness.
Highly
Recommended.
