I Read Pulp Fiction
By Maura Masters
I read all the time, all genres: fiction and non-fiction, pulp to current headline news. Most often, lately, I listen to fiction, pulp fiction. Reading too much current headline news leaves me so bewildered and shaken that pulp fiction is my salvation. They’re about all my addled brain can manage some days. Tucked into the romantic novel spectrum, but with an element of suspense thriller, they’re my guilty pleasure.
They’re easy to listen to, not a literary work out. They’re not taught in English class. The characters are sometimes obnoxious, sometimes insipid, but they usually have a redeeming quality that makes them likeable, or better, an unredeemable quality that makes them somehow savory or attractive to me. Much like a soak in a hot bubble bath, these books take me away from the stresses of my day.
They are the books often written by women with women protagonists. They are accessible thrillers and many, by some unknown publishing formula, have either “girl” or “woman” or “wife” in the title. They are popular and they are, for the most part, fine reads. Hardly an emerging area in fiction — thrillers with women heroines (think Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte), but in the last several years, since the publications of huge bestseller Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn in 2012 and equally blockbuster Girl on a Train by Paula Hawkins in 2015, they have reclaimed book publishing. As a result, there are now seemingly too many “girl” books to decipher, so below is a guide based from my own recent reading experience.
For the last year or so, during my 1-2 hour each way commute in Boston, I listened to these girl books. Audiobooks from the library are a free way to slog through an otherwise dismal commute, and I loaded up titles via the OverDrive app. These titles may seem similar, but the stories are all unique and salaciously captivating. My listening history to date includes: Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter about a daughter who stumbles into the double-agent life of her small-town mother, and The Girl They Left Behind by Roxanne Veletzos about an adopted orphan in war-torn 1941 Bucharest who discovers her Jewish roots. (If you liked The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, you’ll like this one too.) The Girl Before by pseudonym author J.P. Delaney creates all sorts of intrigue at London’s One Folgate Street. The architect/owner has a lengthy contract for its occupants that is at once comforting as it is peculiar. This book is now being made into a movie directed by Ron Howard.
An Anonymous Girl, co-written by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanan, delves into the deceptive persona of psychoanalyst and deep secret-keeper Dr. Shields — as realized by NYC freelance make-up artist, Jessica Farris. Hendricks has been an editor at Simon & Schuster publishing for at least 20 years, and Pekkanan is a former investigative journalist and feature- turned-fiction writer. Besides Anonymous, they collaborated on The Wife Between Us, also set in NYC, also rumored for the big screen, and also part of my listening commuter catalogue. It’s a mystery surrounding a creepy shared ex- and possibly future husband. A new book out next year from these two writers is You Are Not Alone.
Two titles I especially liked are Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson and A Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn, both male authors. Swanson’s story centers on bi-polar artist Hen’s obsession over an unsolved murder in a Boston neighborhood, and Finn’s is a loose adaptation of director Alfred Hitchcock’s mystery thriller, Rear Window. In the book version, also set in New York City, Anna Fox, an agoraphobic recluse, sees too much when spying on her neighbors — with an intriguing psychological twist. (The movie version of this book, out next year, stars actress Amy Adams as Anna.)
Whether stuck in traffic or not, there are many audiobook choices available for the listening pleasure of the wayward reader. The oftentimes woman-written/woman-protagonist thriller fiction, or girl books, are good choices when the need to escape includes an engaging storyline. Twists and turns in a setting unfamiliar draws the reader into an adventure when looking out the window at an all too familiar landscape.
Maura’s life is about storytelling; whether reading for pleasure or editing for Alice. An English major who concentrated on 19th century English literature (Jane Austen anyone?), for a long time she primarily read historical fiction, but now her tastes are more diverse. Maura especially likes reading first works from budding writers.