The Singing Bone- A Novel (1958)

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A convicted killer's imminent parole forces a woman to confront the nightmarish past she's spent twenty years escaping. 1979: Seventeen-year-old Alice Pearson can't wait to graduate from high school and escape the small town in upstate New York where she grew up. In the meantime, she and her three closest friends spend their time listening to Led Zeppelin, avoiding their dysfunctional families, and getting high in the nearby woods. Then they meet the enigmatic Jack Wyck, who lives in the rambling old farmhouse across the reservoir. Enticed by his quasi-mystical philosophy and the promise of a constant party, Alice and her friends join Mr. Wyck's small group of devoted followers. But once in his thrall, their heady, freewheeling idyll takes an increasingly sinister turn, and Alice finds herself crossing psychological and moral boundaries that erode her hold on reality. When Mr. Wyck's grand scheme goes wrong, culminating in a night of horrific murders, Alice's already crumbling world falls into chaos, and she barely makes her way back to normal life. Twenty years later, Alice has created a quiet life for herself as a professor of folklore, but an acclaimed filmmaker threatens to expose her secret past when he begins making a documentary about Jack Wyck's crimes and the cult-like following that he continues to attract even from his prison cell. Jack Wyck has never forgiven Alice for testifying against him, and as he plots to overturn his conviction and regain his freedom, she is forced to confront the long suppressed memories of what happened to her in the farmhouse—and her complicity in the evil around her. The Singing Bone is a spellbinding examination of guilt, innocence, and the fallibility of memory. Weaving together folklore, seventies-era anxiety about sex, drugs, and cults, and dominated by the indelibly menacing Jack Wyck, this richly imagined novel heralds the arrival of a remarkable new voice in literary mystery. From School Library Journal Quiet, studious Alice Wood is forced to face her past when filmmaker Hans Loomis approaches her about including her story in a documentary about cult leader Jack Wyck in the 1970s. Although Alice has sought obscurity after the events of that summer, which led to Wyck's imprisonment, it soon becomes clear that Alice will be outed either by the filmmaker or a group of Wyckians, who still admire Wyck despite his conviction. In her debut, Hahn intertwines Alice's experiences with free love and drugs and her search for enlightenment as a teenager with her desire to remain anonymous as an adult. The chapters alternate between 1979 and 1999, but Alice's stream-of-consciousness narrative sometimes blurs the line between past and present. This book demonstrates convincingly how an intelligent, well-liked, and respected high school student can suddenly find herself involved with a man on the fringes of society. Although teens need to navigate between two narrators and two different time periods, those who appreciate psychological thrillers will keep reading for answers. VERDICT A good choice where Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl and Paula Hawkins's The Girl on the Train are popular.—Krystina Kelley, Belle Valley School, Belleville, IL Review "Tantalizing . . . carefully crafted." — Publishers Weekly "A writer to watch for fans of sophisticated psychological suspense . . . Hahn maintains a fine balance between mystery and disclosure. The atmosphere throughout is tense and subtly creepy, and the folkloric elements are an interesting, original touch." — Kirkus Reviews " The Singing Bone reads like the work of a seasoned novelist: rich, haunting, layered, beautifully written. It raises questions about the good and evil in all of us, the characters are complex, and the story's a page-turner—what more could a reader ask for?" — B. A. Shapiro , New York Times bestselling author of The Art Forger "I stayed up all night reading The Singing Bone , and I kept on reading it on the airport bus. When I finished