Why you should read Megan Abbott
Three booksellers on why you need to start reading Megan Abbott.
‘Megan Abbott’s psychological thrillers are dreamy, immersive, knife-sharp explorations of adolescent girlhood: competition, emerging sexuality, expectations and self-realisation. Those ordinary dramas are made extraordinary by being embedded in gripping, fast-paced mysteries.
In The Fever, the girls at one high school are falling suddenly, mysteriously ill, one by one, in what seems to be a mix of contagious hysteria and demonic possession. Is it linked to sexual activity?
And in her latest novel, You Will Know Me, there’s a murder – and a cover-up – in the close-knit community of adolescent aspiring Olympic gymnasts and their stage parents. It’s a heightened dramatisation of the way overparenting, intense ambition and hothouse environments can warp lives.’ – Jo Case, editor of the Readings Monthly
‘I’ve lost a lot of sleep because of Megan Abbott. I inhaled her psychological thrillers The End of Everything, Dare Me and You Will Know Me. All are expertly-paced, unsettling coming-of-age narratives laced with intrigue that kept me up long into the night. Abbott deals with themes of sexual awakening, female friendship and family relationships. She’s incredibly skilled in capturing the muddy desires and longing of adolescence; her characters are exceptionally complex, guaranteed to get under your skin.
I haven’t yet read her third novel, The Fever, because I didn’t ever want there to me a moment when I didn’t have a Megan Abbott novel waiting for me. But with Abbott coming to the upcoming Melbourne Writers Festival, now seems like the perfect time to crack it open.
Before writing these four more literary thrillers, Abbott had written four crime novels influenced by classic noir fiction: Die a Little, Queenpin, The Song is You and Bury Me Deep (the latter two reference notorious real-world crimes). These all showcase Abbott’s incredible skill at writing complex and compelling women with giddy prose and a brilliant sense of pace (with the added bonus of incredible 1950s covers!) – perfect reading for anyone who has relished Abbott’s psychological thrillers as much as I have!’ – Stella Charls, marketing and events coordinator
‘I first came across Megan Abbott when I was doing research for an essay on masculinity in postmodern hardboiled crime fiction and picked up her book, The Street Was Mine, which she published as part of her academic life. Not long after, while browsing my local independent book shop, I spied a copy of Die a Little, one of Abbott’s earlier hardboiled, noir-style detective novels, high up at the start of the fiction shelf. I loved it so much that I found and read all of her other novels.
These earlier works were all in the noir/hardboiled style (and packaged with excellent pulp-fiction style covers featuring dark shadows, busty women with red lips, and besuited men holding guns). Abbott played with the genre. Set usually in 1950s or 60s LA, her 'detectives’ were always women, and rather than casting them in the role of cop or detective, these were regular women with regular jobs: nurse, school teacher, shop attendant. Their boringly, painfully ‘regular’ lives fed the tension of the hardboiled plot. Now, with her more recent, contemporary fiction works, Abbott has continued to surprise me in her precise play with generic conventions.
I think that one of the most interesting things in reading Abbott’s novels is that you can never be quite certain about who you should be looking at. There’s the story’s main character, usually a teenage girl who possesses undeniable charisma and influence over those around her. But then there’s also the protagonist, the close-third-person narrative’s perspective character. This is usually another girl or woman who is always there and studying her charismatic counterpart closely, inching near but never putting herself directly into the same frame. Ever-present is the protagonist’s complicated and contradictory longing to both be and not be the other girl, the one all eyes are on.
I realise that this probably sounds like Megan Abbott has written the same book over and over again, but believe me – that is not the case. There’s such poise and precision in this formula, executed with a creeping, tense, suspenseful, and feverish narrative skill. I highly recommend everyone read Abbott’s work: it’s always a satisfyingly heated, fast, fevered, slippery, deep experience, if you’re willing to let it take you there!‘ – Amy Vuleta, shop manager at Readings St Kilda
