Sing Her Down
Ivy Pochoda
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, MCD
Mystery & Thrillers
Pages: 288
Pub Date: May 23, 2023
DESCRIPTION:
No Country for Old Men meets Killing Eve in this gritty, feminist Western thriller from the award-winning author of These Women.
SYNOPSIS:
Florence “Florida” Baum is not the hapless innocent she claims to be when she arrives at the Arizona women’s prison—or so her ex-cellmate, Diosmary Sandoval, keeps insinuating.
Dios knows the truth about Florida’s crimes, understands the truth that Florence hides even from herself: that she wasn’t a victim of circumstance, an unlucky bystander misled by a bad man. Dios knows that darkness lives in women too, despite the world’s refusal to see it. And she is determined to open Florida’s eyes and unleash her true self.
When an unexpected reprieve gives both women their freedom, Dios’s fixation on Florida turns into a dangerous obsession, and a deadly cat-and-mouse chase ensues from Arizona to the desolate streets of Los Angeles.
With blistering, incisive prose, the award-winning author Ivy Pochoda delivers a razor-sharp Western. Gripping and immersive, Sing Her Down is a spellbinding thriller setting two indelible women on a path to certain destruction and an epic, stunning showdown.
ADVANCE PRAISE:
“I read everything Ivy Pochoda writes. Her capture of the complexities, diversities, and insanities of today’s life and culture is next to none. I loved Sing Her Down. The world will too.”
—Michael Connelly, author of Desert Star
“A thoroughly entertaining, mean-as-a-snake modern Western, Sing Her Down hits like a shotgun blast.”
—Dennis Lehane, author of Small Mercies
“Sing Her Down is that rare novel that explodes your expectations from the very first page and goes on doing so until the end. Ivy Pochoda finds these characters at the root of their pain and desire. The prose is flayed and taut, the iconic episodes just keep stacking up, and the entirety has the epic intensity of a murder ballad.”
—Jonathan Lethem, author of The Arrest
REVIEW:
Lately, I’ve been in a western frame of mind. So when I read the description of — and advance praise for — Sing Her Down as a gritty, modern, feminist western, I requested an eGalley from Net Galley to check it out. I was unfamiliar with Pochoda’s earlier work, but Sing Her Down certainly seemed like something I would enjoy. You probably sense a ‘but’ coming and that’s fair. What I want to say is that, for me at least, the advance categorizing of the novel as a western never really clicked. The story starts with two women, Florida (Florence Baum) and Dios (Diosmary Sandoval), in prison, and both are subsequently released due to overcrowding at the height of Covid-19 precautions. (Many of the nation’s responses to the epidemic—abandoned cities, people sequestered at home, masking, and social distancing—play a large part in the setting of Sing Her Down.) This is the first novel I’ve read where Covid-19 plays such an overt role in the plot. The nationwide isolation is mirrored in microcosm by Florida and Dios, as the ex-cons never really connect with anyone even after escaping the confines of the prison, and mostly remain locked in their own obsessions and internal conflicts. For example, Dios stalks Florida throughout the story, obsessed with the woman who came from wealthy and refuses to acknowledge her penchant for violence; meanwhile, Florida seeks to separate herself from the other woman at every turn. Undaunted, Dios pursues Florida like an exterior conscience. Dios’ motivation is never clear, other than possibly trying to expose a kindred spirit.
In my reading experience, Sing Her Down is more a character study of these two women, along with Lobos, the police detective determined to track them down after a murder on a bus links back to the two ex-cons. As a character study, the story is strong, the violence unapologetic, the prose hard, knife-edged, and unflinching, never compromised by sentimentality, befitting its flawed subjects. Yet, the post-prison plot remains relatively thin, lacking sufficient conflict between the principles to read as a page-turning thriller—though it skirts the edges of thrillerdom a few times! For large parts of the story, the conflict remains internal, with the lead characters tormented by self-doubt and their dark pasts, freighted with physical and sexual abuse and exploitation. In summation, the story delivered something other than what its marketing message promised. Since this isn’t quite the novel I expected, I find myself in the days since completing it trying to forget the advance hype and weigh the novel on its own merits.
Note: I received a free eGalley of Sing Her Down from Net Galley in consideration of an unbiased review.
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