Blame by Michelle Huneven

From the Publisher

Michelle Huneven, Richard Russo once wrote, is “a writer of extraordinary and thrilling talent.” That talent explodes with her third book, Blame, a spellbinding novel of guilt and love, family and shame, sobriety and the lack of it, and the moral ambiguities that ensnare us all.

The story: Patsy MacLemoore, a history professor in her late twenties with a brand-new Ph.D. from Berkeley and a wild streak, wakes up in jail—yet again—after another epic alcoholic blackout. “Okay, what’d I do?” she asks her lawyer and jailers. “I really don’t remember.” She adds, jokingly: “Did I kill someone?”

In fact, two Jehovah’s Witnesses, a mother and daughter, are dead, run over in Patsy’s driveway. Patsy, who was driving with a revoked license, will spend the rest of her life—in prison, getting sober, finding a new community (and a husband) in AA—trying to atone for this unpardonable act.

Then, decades later, another unimaginable piece of information turns up.

For the reader, it is an electrifying moment, a joyous, fall-off-the-couch-with-surprise moment. For Patsy, it is more complicated. Blame must be reapportioned, her life reassessed. What does it mean that her life has been based on wrong assumptions? What can she cleave to? What must be relinquished?

When Huneven’s first novel, Round Rock, was published, Valerie Miner, in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, celebrated Huneven’s “moral nerve, sharp wit and uncommon generosity.” The same spirit electrifies Blame. The novel crackles with life—and, like life, can leaveyou breathless.

The New York Times - Maria Russo

Huneven makes Patsy's story unfold like a thriller, creating a sense of urgency and mystery even about everyday matters…Huneven's prose moves like a hummingbird, in small bursts that are improbably fast and graceful.

Publishers Weekly

In this gripping tale, Huneven charts the parameters of guilt and how a young, wisecracking intellectual becomes a shadow of her former self. Patsy MacLemoore, a boozy history professor, is helping her boyfriend, Brice, take care of his niece, Joey, whose mother is undergoing cancer treatment. But when Patsy goes on a bender and emerges from a drunken blackout in jail, she learns she's accused of having run down a mother and daughter in her driveway. After her conviction, Patsy transforms from free spirit into a convict, and Huneven deftly underscores the bizarre trajectory Patsy's life has taken. In a prison AA group, Patsy seeks redemption and meaning; she also develops a relationship with the man whose wife and daughter she killed and helps put his son through school, stays the course after her release and maintains a friendship with Brice and Joey. Brilliant observations, excellent characters, spiffy dialogue and a clever plot keep readers hooked, and the final twist turns Patsy's new life on its ear. Huneven's exploration of misdeeds real and imagined is humane, insightful and beautiful. (Sept.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Library Journal

In 1981, Patsy MacLemoore is a smart, functioning alcoholic. A professor at Hallen College in Altadena, CA, she is known for loud and lascivious behavior at faculty parties and for missing the occasional class after a night of drinking and taking pills. When Patsy, who has a suspended license, is arrested and jailed for hitting and killing a mother and daughter—both Jehovah's Witnesses—in her driveway, she doesn't remember the accident. After two years in prison, Patsy quits drinking, eventually returning to her old job but not her old ways. Patsy's sober life is carefully unfurled—new connections forged, old relationships changed, a constant background of remorse and shame—but the book's promotional copy somewhat spoils this talented author's (Jamesland) carefully nuanced, sharply focused narrative by trumpeting a plot twist that isn't even hinted at before page 220. VERDICT Recommended to readers who enjoy literary novels like Sue Miller's Lost in the Forest and Laura Moriarty's The Rest of Her Life that examine how a tragic accident irrevocably changes life's course. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/09.]—Laurie A. Cavanaugh, Brockton P.L., MA

Kirkus Reviews

Huneven (Jamesland, 2003, etc.) tracks a 20-year-old burden of guilt with supple technique. Alcoholism and integrity drive her novel, which is narrated with flashes of irony, appealing warmth and dry judgment. Patsy MacLemoore plays only a bit part in the opening scene, during which 12-year-old Joey, whose mother is dying in the hospital, spends a bizarre night in the care of her attractive, wastrel Uncle Brice and his girlfriend Patsy, an alcoholic history professor who gets drunk, gives Joey pills and beer and pierces her ears unevenly. The story proper begins a year later, in May 1981, and Patsy takes center-stage. During her latest blackout, she drives into and kills two Jehovah's Witnesses, mother and daughter. Prison follows, two harsh years from which Patsy emerges stripped to the emotional bone. She rebuilds her life assisted by Brice, his boyfriend Gilles (Patsy's not too surprised by that revelation) and the forgiveness of the husband and father of her victims. Seeking "a way to be good," she finds it caring for AIDS patients, starting with Gilles. She takes sanctuary in marriage to Cal, an older, richer man with a long history of helping the troubled. Patsy's resolution to be a better person means that she chooses not to act on her powerful attraction to a fellow academic. Twenty years after the killings, a stunning revelation forces her to recast her identity and her relationships. Grace, insight and seemingly effortless narration distract from the odd pacing and sometimes meandering progress of this empathetic tale.

What People Are Saying

Yes, this book is dark . . . But also funny and full of life . . . This book is a pleasure, on every level. --Sue Miller, Bookforum

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