The mix of genres and the novel’s haunting atmosphere places readers on unstable ground. This causes a sense of uncertainty that amplifies every act, suspicion, and reaction ... The result is an engrossing, strange, addictive read ... Reid is a master storyteller with a knack for absorbing prose ... Reid wrote an ending that will surprise most readers. Every clue is there, but they are as elusive as the beetles that hide in the dark corners of the house. This is the type of novel that haunts you for days, hanging around in your head and whispering about things you missed and the secrets that became clear only after they’d been revealed. Endings like this are no accident, and the two punches Foe packs in its third act prove Reid is one of the most talented purveyors of weird, dark narratives in contemporary fiction.
When Iain Reid’s debut novel I’m Thinking of Ending Things came out in 2016 its over-the-top psycho-thriller plot drew a number of apt and complimentary comparisons to the films of M. Night Shyamalan. These are likely to continue with the publication of Foe, a very similar but deeper work ... Both Shyamalan and Reid are masters of suspense. Foe reads like a house on fire, and is almost impossible not to finish in one sitting ... You know that twists are coming, but they’re not easy to figure out. Only when it’s over, and you have time to catch your breath ... If Foe were just a thriller it would be a catchy beach read, but it’s not a book without further layers ... an otherworldly hothouse of introversion and fantasy.
Foe is a philosophically bewildering and psychologically triggering novel. Reid’s depiction of Junior’s and Henrietta’s existential crises forces the reader to engage with questions of romantic relationships, identity, technology and the nature of humanity ... Reid brilliantly executes his vision through short chapters filled with well-crafted internal and external dialogue ... With Foe, Reid has written a page-turning novel that will entertain you and have you questioning the very foundation of your existence at the exact same time.
This is one of those novels that concludes its business with a minimum of fanfare, in less time than it takes many novels even to set the silverware, so that you’re thinking about it long after you’ve finished reading it ... He [Reid] borrows some raw basic elements from science fiction, but he does so mostly because he wants to explore questions of identity and love, not because he ever intends to give the props anything much in the way of texture or detail. Unlike with most genre-sightseeing books, however, Foe is saved by the intelligence and delicacy Reid uses to craft the characters in his little ‘what-if’ fable, particularly Henrietta, who moves steadily from an oddly background figure to someone far more complex. Junior too is telegraphed simply but developed into something much more memorable than the cardboard figure he seems at first. The tension in the little farmhouse is the element that lingers long after the book is over.
Reid is back with another harrowing, strange story in Foe ... unlike many a futuristic novel, Foe doesn’t try to tell us that this future is good or bad, safe or unsafe, progress or collapse ... As with Reid’s previous novel, the plot here—the actual storyline—is far less important than the mood and discomfort it conveys and the glaring question marks it brings up ... Reid’s spare writing somehow manages to convey urgency, discomfort, an uncanniness, while leaving large swaths of the character’s personalities and the setting to readers’ imagination. But he gives us enough, just enough, to keep us hungry up to the marvelous turn of an ending.
Reid builds to a deeply unsettling climax ... As much a surgical dissection of what makes a marriage as an expertly paced, sparsely detailed psychological thriller, this is one to read with the lights on.
Though the ending falls a little short, Reid proves once again that he is a master of atmosphere and suspense. Readers won’t be able to put this one down.
