Lee Irby

Edwin Stith lives in Ithica, New York, where he is a college professor. He has returned home to Richmond, Virginia, for his mother's wedding to a man who's slightly older than Edwin himself. Edwin is an enigma. He has an ex-wife and he may or may not have killed her. He may or may not be sleeping with one of his students. He's about to have a stepsister and he may or may not have killed her.

I found this hard to get into and I think it's because Edwin actually talks to us, the readers, throughout the book. I did not like that. But once the story gets going it was hard for me to put the book down. Edwin's trip home lasts three days and those days are jam-packed with drama. There's a diverse bunch of characters and I enjoyed them all. I had no clue how it would end and I couldn't wait to find out. I was really surprised! Looking back on the book now that I've finished it I would say it's actually quite clever. I feel as though I've known Edwin forever and I'm sad we had to say goodbye.

I won a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway. Thank you Doubleday Books.… (mais)

I read this book as an electronic advance reading copy provided by NetGalley, and I have submitted my review to the publisher via that web site.

This book should be retitled as Unrecoverable: Days of Your Life You Will Waste by Reading This Book. The narrator tries to be clever, but the plot is convoluted and inconsistent. Almost every female character is depicted as a sex object rather than an individual. Plot twists make no sense, and the ending is not a resolution in any sense of the word. Not recommended.… (mais)

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)

The central premise at the heart of Lee Irby's Unreliable is a fascinating one, and led me to believe that this would be one of the few crime thrillers I would actually like, a genre I usually find intolerably formulaic; namely, a failed mystery author and current college professor announces to us on page one that he recently killed his ex-wife, but then immediately follows that up with the confession that he might actually be kidding, promising a metafictional meditation on the act of genre writing and the nature of unreliable narrators, a taut psychological thriller in which we never know whether this guy is messing with us or not until the very end. Unfortunately, though, Irby pulls a pretty big switcheroo as the book continues; for the more we read, the more we realize that this "did he or didn't he kill her" shtick is simply a cheap gimmick designed to draw readers in, but that the story itself is nothing more than a character-based literary dramedy about a deeply flawed middle-aged son visiting his family and old hometown, and all the wacky foibles that happen within such a milieu, having nothing to do with murder whatsoever.

That unto itself is not necessarily a terrible thing -- once you get past the premise, the rest reads much like a smart and witty Richard Russo or Michael Chabon tale, benefiting from its deep look at the town of Richmond, Virginia right at a point when it is internally debating the future of the Dixiecrat-era Confederate statues still dotting the city -- but when you were expecting a serious and dramatic crime thriller that doubles as a Postmodernist statement on the act of writing crime thrillers, as its dust jacket unambiguously promises ("Irby plays with the thriller trope in unimaginably clever ways"), the bait-and-switch on display here can't help but to be a big disappointment, not the fault of the author but a problem clearly resting on the shoulders of the Doubleday marketing staff. Now that you know the situation, you'll be able to approach this book with the right mindset and enjoy it a lot more than I did; but do yourself a favor and shed any assumptions you might have about this being an actual crime novel.

Out of 10: 6.0, but 8.0 if you ignore the dust jacket… (mais)

This exuberantly written part-mystery, part-roller coaster ride through the hell of a return home one weekend, is narrated by a self-described unreliable narrator (hence the title), who begins his tale by hinting that he might have murdered his ex-wife, an Ihop waitress, and/or his mother. The first few chapters rely heavily on this literary trope, presenting to us a man who may or may not be insane, a serial killer, both, or none. There's an initial cuteness factor here, which quickly wears off, because the narrator punctuates every other event with this "did I or didn't I?" exclamation in an effort to throw the reader into a tizzy of uncertainty. Literarily speaking, the unreliable narrator is a great device for an author, which can build tension, unease, and throw the reader off her game. Here, however, the effect is not so much mystery as stylistic gamesmanship. Typically the narrator doesn't announce his or her unreliability; part of what makes him unreliable is that he presents himself to us in one fashion and the reader learns, slowly and over the events of the novel, that the narrator is not to be trusted. This is a source of great suspense. However, when the narrator introduces himself as someone not to be trusted, it is less effective. How funny is a person who says "I'm a really funny person"? The unreliability of the narrator is meant to be the motivating theme of this book; however, I find it gets in the way of the really rollicking good tale that ensues.

After the first few chapters, however, for the most part the reference to this is-he-or-isn't-he mystery gets pushed to the backseat as the narrator drops this line of self-description, and the thrills and chills of the action takes over, and the events that unfold are more than exciting enough to deal with.

Specifically, Edwin Stith, our narrator, is a middle-aged writing professor in upstate New York who is beckoned home to the South for his mother's second marriage to a man Edwin's age, who, along with his own 2 grown children, having been living with Edwin's mother, taken over her house and garage with vintage Vietnam-War-era explosives, and who are all dealing with issues of their own. The daughter is a sullen drug-user who may or may not be a singer in a grunge-type band; the son may or may not have links to an underground anarchist group who are after his father's hand grenades. Meanwhile, Edwin, in addition to the personal mayhem surrounding his mother's upcoming wedding, is dealing with a crisis of his own involving a highly irresponsible and unethical relationship with one of his college students, who may or may not be on her way down to confront Edwin.

The narrator describes the events that ensue over the course of 3 days with great energy, great humor, and an invigorating style. The plot builds over the 3 days so that the suspense of various plot lines -- the daughter's shenanigans, the son's involvement with a possible criminal activity, Edwin's involvement with an old flame and the people who are trying to stop them -- all come to a head as the action snowballs. There are a lot of interesting and well-drawn characters here who all ring true, and the events over the 3 days are a roller-coaster ride that take us through the underbelly of youth culture, to the high-class city fathers and everything in between. The story reads partly like a farce, with wacky situations and wild rides through the city and its various classes of citizens.

Until the end, when the "unreliable" trope comes into play again and makes it seem like the author intended two separate novels, one a farcical family dramedy, the other a dark twisted tale of evil and/or insanity. In this way I feel the novel has an identity crisis.

Overall, an entertaining read with some flaws.

Thank you to the author and publisher for a review copy.… (mais)