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Andrew Motion advised locking two different characters in a room and telling them to get on with it; Hannah Pittard's (THE FATES WILL FIND THEIR WAY, 2011 and REUNION, 2014) does just that, but puts them in a car. Her third novel, LISTEN TO ME, sends an estranged couple, Maggie and Mark, on a road trip from Chicago to Virginia, the disquiet of marriage hovering like an ominous storm cloud between the driver and passenger. Even after the sky clears and their chilling journey is in the rearview mirror, Mark and Maggie aren't the same.
Maggie and Mark are a veterinarian and academic, respectively, living in Chicago. After eight seemingly perfect years of marriage, their lives change abruptly when Maggie, walking home from the Redline, is mugged and left a mere three blocks from her Clark street apartment. Though the bruise on the back of her head heals quickly, the psychological impact is progressive paranoia. She buys a switchblade, fills out a concealed carry permit and maxes browser tabs on tragedy porn—stories of rape, murder and morbid crime.
Through therapy sessions—and the slow passage of time—she improves. But another setback occurs when a neighbor is murdered. Police show Maggie photos of the young coed, suspecting a link between the two crimes. Maggie's mental state crumbles, leaving Mark reeling as well: "what was becoming more and more apparent—and this wasn't a happy or an easy realization—was that Mark was spending his life with one of the world's weakling[s]: the type of person who gets diagnosed with cancer and, instead of going outside and taking on life, gets in bed and waits for the inevitable."
Mark's faults manifest less overtly than Maggie's. Partially influenced by his wife's reclusion, he devotes considerable daydreaming to his research assistant. He muses on a potential affair in the aftermath of any fresh quarrel with Maggie.
The situation dire, the two decide on an early departure for their annual visit to Mark's parents' cottage. The couple pile into their car with their loyal pooch Gerome— their thoughts occupying space beyond the rain-spattered windows for much of the journey. The tension escalates as the weather and the roadside landscape turn grim: four storm cells ravage the Rust Belt and Appalachia, creating Katrina-level damage that leaves every stop along their route without power. Their unease is heightened after several encounters with eerie strangers and an overnight stay at an ominous hotel.
With a story so deceptively simple in its gestural sense—a frayed marriage threatens to pull apart during a stressful road trip—Pittard, like her mentor Anne Beattie, proves best at writing fully-fledged characters with vivid flaws. The story's first lines of dialogue are Mark telling Maggie she worries too much. She responds: "Maybe you don't worry enough." It's simple, yet striking and effective: the foundation of conflict is in place before the reader has turned the first page.
Most impressive is the novel's succinctness despite the immense emotional—and literal—ground the characters cover. Pittard never misses an opportunity to capitalize on volatility. Every chapter in this tightly wound novel begins already simmering, with each line leading to the inevitable boil.
And at not even 200 pages soaking wet, the novel manages to deliver satisfying epiphanies: "What she realized at this moment: her greatest fear—well, her greatest intellectual fear—was of being left behind emotionally."
As some other reviewers have said, the climax feels a bit rushed. Without giving the ending away, it feels safe to say the author could have slowed down, added a few more pages. Nonetheless, Pittard's talent is in making the emotional weigh just as heavily as a physical impact. And that is what makes this book that can be read in one night a story that leaves the reader feeling uneasy much, much longer.
§ Kevin Sterne is a writer and journalist based in Chicago. View more of his work at www.kevinsterne.com
Reviewed by Kevin Sterne, August 2016
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