A review by trudilibrarian
The Church of Dead Girls: A Novel by Stephen Dobyns

4.0

This is how they looked: three dead girls propped up in three straight chairs.

The suspicion didn't just go away. It just slipped back to wherever it hid.

Wow. What a meaty and cerebral read -- textured, layered, nuanced. It is a quiet novel that takes its time to carefully contemplate on its subject. And what is its subject? Despite the title, not the disappearance and death of three young girls, not really. Solving the crime, locating the victims, is secondary to the examination of a small town under siege marinating in fear and gripped by suspicion. Dobyns takes a microscopic approach and in rich, solid prose draws a detailed portrait of a townspeople succumbing to the worst of their prejudices and paranoia. It's excruciatingly intimate and painfully honest.

At times, I was reminded of Shirley Jackson's [b:We Have Always Lived in the Castle|89724|We Have Always Lived in the Castle|Shirley Jackson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1311400048s/89724.jpg|847007]. As with Jackson's novel, Dobyns is able to disturb and unsettle me with his insight into dark hearts and the secrets humans keep. What is that stranger sitting next to us on the bus hiding? Our neighbor? Our friend? Our lover? What impulses lurk behind expressions of devotion and fidelity? What impulses do we see when we look in the mirror? Most of us will never act on them, but they lurk there nevertheless. Waiting, for a crack, for a moment of weakness.

I liked how the first person point of view not only kept me in the dark for much of the novel, but kept me off-kilter and suspicious too. Like the town's inhabitants, everyone became a suspect for me as well, including the narrator himself. I did not trust him. I was never able to satisfactorily confirm his reliability. I was on my own, unnerved and watchful, plagued by feelings of dread, outrage, and melancholy.

Don't let the sleepy start in a sleepy town fool you. This book has teeth. For me, no one writes the mad psychology of small towns better than Stephen King. Dobyns makes a helluva case though. Fans of Donna Tartt's [b:The Secret History|29044|The Secret History|Donna Tartt|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327733397s/29044.jpg|221359] may also enjoy this.