Penance by Eliza Clark. No Advance Reader Copy included. No affiliate links were used. Read my full disclosure policy here.
Eliza Clark’s sophomore novel Penance is a book within a book. The story is framed as a true crime book detailing the murder of teenager Joan Wilson by three of her classmates written by journalist Alec Z. Carelli. From the beginning, we know that Carelli was accused of fabricating quotes and deliberately misrepresenting people. We also know that he illegally obtained some of the material he used. After being pulled from the shelves by its original publisher, it has been republished with an explanation in the introduction, but much of the text remains in its original form.
Carelli’s book follows, drawing on court testimony, interviews, podcast transcriptions, emails, group chats and social media posts. The perpetrators, Angelica, Violet, and Dolly, are painted as unreliable narrators as they scramble to distance themselves from Joan’s horrific and violent murder on the night of the Brexit vote. Clark’s depiction of the crime is particularly gruesome. Joan is also considered an unreliable narrator of her own life. Yet, this ‘definitive account’ of Joan’s murder is written by a journalist who the reader knows is also an unreliable narrator. Throughout Carelli’s book, true-crime podcast transcripts add their own layer of confusion to the ‘what the hell is happening?’ of it all.
Crime fiction, which examines our obsession with true crime as entertainment, has proliferated in the last couple of years. Clark’s Penance is among the best of them. The writing is engrossing, incisive, and compellingly depicts the unethical nature of the true-crime industry.
Penance by Eliza Clark is published by Faber & Faber and is available in hardback, ebook, and audiobook formats.
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