#13 [2024/CBR16] I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai

I Have Some Questions For You (2023) by Rebecca Makkai is my second book by Makkai. My first one was The Great Believers which centers around the AIDS crisis in 1980's Chicago. I hadn't known what to expect, but I was blown away by the story and the characters. I don't now how Makkai does it, but she makes me feel what the characters are feeling in a real, visceral way. I Have Some Questions For You is a very different story, but Makkai managed the same effect. Perhaps I naturally relate even more to an awkward teenage girl than gay men in Chicago, but I felt the same emotional connection with the characters in this book.

Bodie Kane is headed back to her rich high school boarding school, Granby, which had been something of a nightmare when she was a student there. But now she's in her forties, a successful podcaster, and she's come back to teach a couple classes during their February break (an extra long winter break, so the rich kids can go skiing with their parents). 

Bodie had a pretty traumatic childhood with the death of both her brother and father. Shortly thereafter her mother had a mental health crisis and took off. A Mormon family took her in and had the money to send her to a posh boarding school in New Hampshire. Bodie had only two friends at school, and she felt completely out of place.

Part of Bodie is excited to go back to her school and see one of her old friends who is now a teacher. The other part of her is haunted by what occurred there. Not only is it difficult to face the memories of the asshole jocks and mean girls, but she has questions about what happened to Thalia Keith. Thalia was a transfer and shared a room with Bodie her junior year. Beautiful and rich, she joined the popular clique almost immediately, but she was still mostly decent to Bodie.

Their senior year, Thalia Keith is discovered dead in the school swimming pool. Omar Evans, the athletic trainer at the high school, and one of the few, if only, black men on campus is quickly and unceremoniously found guilty and sent to jail. They said that he was dealing drugs and sleeping with Thalia. At the time, Bodie accepted this, but looking back now, she's not sure it makes sense. 

The book is written as a letter from Bodie to her music teacher at Granby. She adored him, and credits him for helping her become her successful adult self. But again, from the vantage point of adulthood, she's realized that maybe he wasn't the great, selfless teacher she had thought.

This book is part murder mystery as Bodie tries to figure out what happened to Thalia, part coming-of-age teenage memoir, part Black Lives Matters consciousness, and part "Me, Too" awareness. I related intensely to Bodie's discomfort at school, especially when the kids were harassing her. Kids were meanest when I was in middle school. I was fortunately not the constant target of bullies. But I also was very sensitive and had no defenses; I was simply at the mercy of any mean kid out there. Makkai used her magic to make me feel how teenage Bodie struggled, and I deeply related to her. It was fascinating to see how Bodie viewed her teenage self as an adult, how she saw teenagers now, and how she interacted with her high school classmates as an adult.

I loved this book, and at this point, I think I might need to search out some of Makkai's earlier writing. What I do know is that I will definitely read whatever she writes next.