Lynch, Chris (2005). Inexcusable. NY: Athnaeum. ISBN: 0689847890. 176 pages.
"I am a good guy," Kier keeps telling us in this first person narrative that begins as he is considering what appears to be a girl's allegation of date rape. As the book continues, we are led back in time through Kier's senior year in high school and we gradually realize that our narrator is not the "good guy" he claims to be. Kier is the epitome of the unreliable narrator; throughout the novel, we are privy to explanations and rationalizations for his sometimes rough and unethical behavior. While he tries to convince us that he is just a regular guy, Kier unwittingly delivers us a description of a teenage sociopath. This is a rather chilling novel that has provoked much response from the YALSA-bk list; participants wonder if the novel is, indeed, the narrative of a truly disturbed person or just a description of a regular guy who makes an error in judgment, albeit a BIG one. This interpretive tension is what really makes the novel effective. Review sources have compared Lynch's novel to Anderson's Speak and I feel like the partnering of these two books is apt. |
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