Evil Genius

A Novel

By: Claire Oshetsky

Narrated by: Kimberly Farr

A Recommended Read from: Alta * Bustle * Electric Literature * Forbes * LitHub * Los Angeles Times * Kirkus * New York Times * People * Vulture An exuberant, brutally hilarious novel about a young woman’s insatiable quest to carve her own path—even if she needs to step over a few dead bodies along the way

It’s 1974 and San Francisco is full of mystery and menace. Nineteen-year-old Celia Dent keeps telling herself how lucky she is to be working at the phone company and to be married to her Drew, a man who says he loves her. Celia’s contentment with her little life is shattered, though, when a woman she knows from work is murdered in a love tryst gone awry. What would that be like, Celia wonders, to die for love—or to kill for love? What would it be like to live each moment passionately and with full awareness that each breath is bringing her closer to her last?

Before Celia knows it, her musings about love-and-death happenings are bleeding into daily life. Suddenly she’s playing hooky from work and searching for a love tryst of her very own. She’s practicing her marksmanship at a local gun range and thinking about how good it would feel to bury something sharp inside her domineering husband’s ear. It’s all pretend, though, until the night comes when Celia finally goes too far, and she and Drew are set on a deadly collision course.

Exhilarating, surreal, and bitingly clever, Evil Genius is a comic noir exploring obsession and desire—and what happens when a sweetly seditious young woman dares to imagine a better life.

Loved it!

Strong Shirley Jackson vibes. Witty. sad. funny, smart. I went in blind and you should too. Just read it.

Dark Humor

Mmmmm…I’m really not sure how I feel about this novel. While there is humor, dark or otherwise, Celia’s whole situation is very sad to me. Celia is a 19 year old, married, and living in San Francisco during the late 1970’s. She is married to an arse beyond belief. I wanted to hurt him. I spent the majority of my time being frustrated, angry, and depressed. So my overall experience with this book is merely okay to good unfortunately.

A joyless ride

This novel felt endless. I was expecting dark humor and entertainment. Instead, it’s a long succession of sad episodes. The main character is an unraveling, psychotic woman with a violent, domineering husband whom she nevertheless desperately wants to love. At first, I was rooting for her, but I soon stopped caring about her, or the narrative itself. I thought of Cyndi Lauper’s rebellious “Girls just want to have fun,” only the fun never arrives.

I can appreciate a critique of patriarchy and its unfairness to women, but this story oozes spite against men. Even the dog, referred to as “the puppy,” is angry, and with good reason: men (and their enablers) are jerks. As characters, they are paper thin, devoid of any humanity, avatars of villainous selfishness. Only the narrator shows any real complexity.

I did enjoy several surreal animal descriptions: the mythic Crab Queen, the mounted head of a stag gazing down from a wall, a dead deer with its tongue grotesquely sticking out... There are moments that feel inspired, but mostly, I found it boring.

Kimberly Farr is a very good narrator.