Wolf at the Table

October 1, 2023

Haunted by a triple murder that occurred down the street in the 1950s, the Larkin children spin far from home when they grow up, with Myra serving as a prison nurse, sisters Lexy and Fiona washing up on opposite sides of the class-and-power divide, and former altar-boy Alex thrown out of the house and drifting. Then their mother starts receiving threatening postcards, with a hint that there's a serial killer in their midst. From Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award finalist Rapp. Prepub Alert.

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January 8, 2024
Rapp (Know Your Beholder) draws inspiration from his mother’s experiences as a prison nurse for a diffuse meditation on the nature of evil. The story begins in 1951 Elmira, N.Y., where 13-year-old Myra Lee Larkin encounters a stranger at a diner. Claiming he’s Mickey Mantle, the man offers her a ride home in the rain. Myra Lee makes it back safely, but learns the next morning that three of her neighbors, including a child, have been stabbed to death, and that a man seen entering the house matches the description of the stranger who drove her home. The murders remain unsolved and Rapp jumps forward in time, first to 1964 with a section dedicated to Myra Lee’s wild younger brother Alec, who’s decided to embrace a life of crime and partner up with a violent thief. Then, in 1966, their mother, Ava, now a nurse in an Illinois prison, loses a friend and colleague to mass murderer Richard Speck, and examines serial killer John Wayne Gacy shortly before his execution. Despite an eerie vibe, enhanced by Alec’s cryptic postcards to family members that suggest he might be a serial killer and Myra Lee’s lingering memories of her encounter with the stranger, the narrative’s broad scope ends up diluting its impact. This falls short of the material’s rich potential.

February 1, 2024
Prolific writer and playwright Rapp (Know Your Beholder, 2015) delivers this haunting novel following the Larkin family over 60 years, as their lives intertwine with violence and mental illness. In 1951, 13-year-old Myra has a strange encounter with a young man who claims he is Mickey Mantle. Later that night, her neighbors are brutally murdered, and the perpetrator's description sounds oddly like this man. So begins Myra's proximity to killers. Later a nurse, she may have been harassed by Richard Speck in Chicago, and she examines John Wayne Gacy before his execution (an event that inspired Rapp, as it seems likely his mother was this very nurse). Then Myra's brother, Alec, a career thief who disappears for long stretches, starts sending postcards hinting at more serious crimes. Even her husband, suffering undiagnosed schizophrenia, has a mental breakdown when the lure of violence overwhelms him. Readers hear from multiple perspectives: Myra, Alec, their devout mother Ava, sister Fiona, and Myra's son, Ronan. This literary page-turner will invite a variety of readers.

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February 15, 2024
A literate, gothic tale of murder, madness, and intergenerational conflict. Rapp's latest opens with a central mystery: A young man wanders into a small town in 1951, identifies himself to 13-year-old Myra Lee Larkin as Mickey Mantle, and commits a triple murder worthy of Charles Starkweather. He disappears, leaving a familial memory that will endure, in the form of whispers and a baseball card, for the next half century. Myra, a good Catholic girl who tries to hold to her faith, is one of six children who inevitably drift apart. One, Alec, presents a foreboding figure early on: "His soaked hair makes him seem sinful and ghoulish." Everyone in Myra's life, it seems, is touched by mental illness: her father, an uncommunicative war veteran; her free-spirit sister, who tries on every fad of the 1960s; her husband, a straight shooter who descends into schizophrenia, convinced that a light bulb is ordering him to kill Myra and their son, who grows over the years to be both a successful writer and a man himself in need of psychiatric medication; Myra's grandson, who has apocalyptic visions of cloudscapes. And then there's brother Alec, whose career opens in this book with a spasm of bloodshed, many more of which punctuate the narrative. Rapp can write up a storm, but the story he presents, as his characters attempt to understand one another over the course of their lives, is relentlessly gloomy and violent, as if channeling the spirit of Cormac McCarthy. It's improbable, too: Except in fiction, the chance of being surrounded by that much mental illness seems vanishingly small. Still, willing suspension of disbelief and all, Rapp is a sharp and witty observer ("Their father is staring at his plate as if the ham will provide a solution"), and his narrative commands attention. A beautifully told but relentlessly grim tale that ends well for almost no one.

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