There’s something almost Grecian about the set of calamities ... No Way Home could easily have settled into a worn remake of Fatal Attraction — just boil the dog instead of the rabbit — Boyle has something more surprising in store ... I love the pulpy way this novel keeps ratcheting up the violence, the cringe-inducing humiliations, the face-planting missteps! And, of course, it all pours down on us in the great avalanche of Boyle’s prose that can feel chaotic in the moment until it delivers us masterfully to some breathtaking catastrophe of primal, self-justifying rage.
Boyle is trying — if not entirely succeeding — at doing something trickier in this novel. The hats aren’t strictly black or white, the femme not as fatale as she seems, intentions and emotions vaguer and harder to tease out than in a more straightforward thriller ... Setting the plot in motion requires Boyle to abandon his great gift of satire and humor for the sake of structure. What’s left are some ironic passages about how the world pretends it can fix us — give us a home, a job, the joys of a relationship, healthcare when we need it — but always lets us down.
Bethany’s ex isn’t quite as much an ex as she’d indicated. Something’s gotta give. Something does, and then something worse. Revenge, retribution, retaliation—there are a series of attempts to balance the cosmic scales of justice. Do these characters get what they deserve? (Does anyone?) The narrative alternates among the perspective of each of these three, none of whom has much of an interior life. The plot pivots on pat coincidence, with some noirish cliché and riffing on sex and death. Each of the three characters wonders where their life is going
Tense ... None of the central characters emerges unscathed from Boyle’s piercing depictions of their transactional and self-serving behavior. This sharply observed novel will keep readers turning the pages.
