Books |
The Execution of Noa P. Singleton: A Novel
Elizabeth L. Silver
By
Published: Jul 09, 2013
Category:
Fiction
Maybe I’ve had bad luck, but most of the legal thrillers I’ve read suffer from the same ailments: pathologically neat plots, facts withheld for maximum effect, characters who make the kind of turns that are unavailable in real life — and I could go on.
“The Execution of Noa P. Singleton: A Novel” delivered something new to me.
Exasperation.
Noa Singleton, at 25, was convicted of murder after a short trial at which she did not speak. At 35, she’s on Death Row, with six months to live. Now comes the mother of the woman she killed, lawyer in hand, eager to help Noa beat the reaper.
You do not have to be clairvoyant to guess that Noa’s not guilty.
You do not have to be clairvoyant to guess that the mother’s motives are complex.
But you would have to be clairvoyant to explain why Noa is so unrelentingly hateful. So passive. So silent. When forced to speak, so nasty. And, most inexplicably of all, so determined to die.
Here’s Noa, bestowing her spectacular absence of charm to the young lawyer who’s come to try and save her life:
“You think I’m wrongly convicted, don’t you?” I smiled. “You want to start your career off with a bowl of karma so big you’ll be set for all the nasty stuff you’ll do in the future when you work for a multinational bank or reinsurance company or something like that. Am I right?”
That should motivate him, doncha think?
Twenty minutes into the book, I thought: Let Noa die, and soon.
Then I realized that Elizabeth L. Silver, a lawyer and first-time novelist, was playing me. And doing it very well — she’s created an anti-hero you’ll dislike as much as you loathed the main character of the addictively readable noir classic, The Killer Inside Me, by Jim Thompson. [To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle edition, click here.]
Still, I cried for an editor’s red pencil as many moments of my life disappeared while Noa spun wheels.
“Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand?” Again, I nodded yes. “Was that a yes?” I nodded. “Uh-huh.” “Yes?” “Yes.”
Glad we got that settled. A page later:
“Did you see Sarah get shot?” Sergeant Egan asked. I nodded. “Did you see Sarah get shot, Noa?” I nodded again, refusing to speak. “We need a vocal response for the record. Yes or no?” “Okay,” I said.
As a teenager, I read Reflections on the Guillotine by Albert Camus, a powerful essay that would convince any reasonable person capital punishment is barbaric. But there’s a first time for everything — so, warden, please… let me pull the switch on Ms. Singleton. Really, she’s that infuriating. (See for yourself. Read an excerpt.)
I like a perverse woman as much as the next guy, but after a while I think — and I cannot be alone in this — enough, already. All around us are people fighting to make life a little less of a charnel house. They ignore their own discomfort, they struggle, they take a stand. And here is a woman who wants to assist the State in making her death certain. Noa doesn’t care about herself; why should I care about her?
Oops. I keep forgetting: Noa is a character, not a person. And, like all of us, she has her reasons.
I learned of Noa’s reasons because, although I loathed her, I read every last word of the book.
First time I’ve ever done that with a book I hated.
Or did I hate it?
