A Murder to Remember Review

Jane Austen fan Amelia Bennett sneaks away from a dull tour of an English country manor, only to run into a man more dashing than Mr. Darcy himself. About to lose his ancestral home to family debts, charming aristocrat Tom Calder invites his American guest to join him in drinking his way through the estate’s priceless wine collection. But when they wake in his bed the next morning, they’re convinced that in their drunken haze, they witnessed a murder.

By TAPHAPublished about a year ago • 1 min read

Joyce Carol Oates’ A Murder to Remember is a psychological thriller with a perspective that skilfully explores the concept of human relationships, the unreliability of memory, and personal tragedy. This novel is focused on Amanda, a woman who finds herself unleashed with the hasty, brutal murder of her husband and struggling with an eerie and wrong situation that endangers her mind and her life. Based on real-life events, Oates brings out a beautiful grim on how to tell the story of losing a beloved through a suspenseful turning of the narratives that depict grief, weakness and the inherent fight in man.

The novel begins with Amanda and her husband on what looks like a perfect camping trip, which degenerates into tragedy when her husband is killed. Amanda finds herself lost and Instagramming to a man who comes to the park and rescues her, only for her to theorise that the man may not be good because it means he was watching her all along. Analyzing the nature of the trauma and confusion as the story goes on, Oates gradually develops tension around Amanda’s attempts to investigate her memories to determine the truth. Such a slow and Gradual build-up enables readers to feel the stress from Amanda’s viewpoint, thus preparing for a climate of distrust and paranoid feelings.

One advantage for the readers is that Oates’ writing focuses on the healing process a woman’s psyche is going through and makes us feel the person behind the incentives. It makes for a suspenseful psychological thriller and this novel does not disappoint readers with its intensity. They are post-apocalyptic, memory, and the search for some measure of agency after trauma. It is for this reason that those internet users who like novels that are fathom and built round characters, which contain a constitutional influence of amaze while deep thinking will like A Murder to Remember since it offers suspense and mutual commentary about human steadfastness when facing loss and fear.

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