I like to think that I'm a discerning reader, a savvy selector of books for all the right reasons. But I confess that every once in a while, a book comes along whose cover is just too fascinating to ignore.

The jacket of Sarai Walker's FURIOUS VIOLET, with its striking typography superimposed on a detail from Caravaggio's Medusa, was one of those for me. So shout out to designer Sara Wood for piquing my interest in this novel, and even greater kudos to the author for keeping me hooked once I cracked open that first page. 

Walker's protagonist, Violet Shelley (who mostly goes by her middle name, West), comes from a literary lineage. She's the daughter of the playwright Hugh Shelley and Juliet Bellwood, a poet whose fame has only skyrocketed since her death by suicide when West was just a baby. West has inherited her parents' literary chops…kind of. She's a bestselling novelist in her own right, but her tastes tend toward true crime rather than the literary. 

"This is a tightly written novel that's both propulsive and considered, the kind of book that prompts reflection as much as it does frantic page-turning."

West's current book project focuses on a serial killer known as the “Crying Killer,” one of her only subjects who still may be at large. Perhaps that's why she feels especially on edge as she travels through the western United States interviewing the Crying Killer's survivors. Her anxiety ratchets up a whole lot more, though, when she starts receiving anonymous notes from someone who appears to be following her across state lines. Even more unsettling? Those notes call West “Mother” and seem to insinuate that her stalker is her own child.

West is understandably shaken by this. Not only has she never had a child, she's never wanted one. Now firmly in middle age, she's in the throes of perimenopause and more than ready to leave her reproductive years behind her, especially since her reckoning with the mother she never knew --- whose suicide felt a lot like abandonment --- has left her deeply ambivalent about anything remotely maternal. 

West flees for her best refuge, the rural Colorado home of the uncle who raised her. Surely there she can organize her book notes, start writing, and leave any stalkers behind her. But there's no escaping her past, as West understands all too clearly when she arrives in the nearby college town only to learn that a major academic symposium devoted to Juliet Bellwood's life and work is about to kick off on campus. What's more, someone is claiming to have information about Juliet's final days that threatens to upend not only Bellwood scholarship, but also West's entire sense of herself. 

FURIOUS VIOLET more than lives up to the promise of its book jacket. It’s an unsettling literary thriller, and its cryptic stalker messages and well-plotted backstory revelations are designed to keep readers off-kilter. But it's also very much a character study of West, who's forced to confront her own aging body, her desire to refuse motherhood, her choice of literary subject matter, and her complicated family history head-on in a way that she's never quite had to do before. In addition, it's a study of obsessive fandom, as West grows to resent the so-called “Furies” who revere her mother's memory and seem to suggest that they have a relationship with Juliet at least as close as West's own. 

This is a tightly written novel that's both propulsive and considered, the kind of book that prompts reflection as much as it does frantic page-turning.