The Truants

What a great start to the reading year with this powerful and engrossing novel. A couple of things I thought really notable. First, it is remarkable how many novels (per R. O. Kwon's The Incendiaries) are indebted to Donna Tartt's The Secret History. The Truants is another coming-of-age campus novel, tinged with both learning (for the protagonists) and regret. While Tartt's novel is a valid analog, I also saw similarities with John Fowles's The Magus. Similar to Nicholas Urfe in this work, so Jess Walker (the first-person narrator in Weinberg's novel) is placed in a series of situations she does not fully understand. The second key observation is that The Truants quite explicitly pays homage to Agatha Christie, and this author supreme of crime fiction arguably deserves a renaissance. The Truants works owing to its constant plot turns, hints, and reveals. Truth becomes a relative concept, and there is myth-making, deception, and blatant untruths pervasive throughout the text. Arguably Weinberg tries to make the same point as Christie: all crime could be considered fiction; “perfect” crimes don't have simple/single answers; and people often disappear when they most want to be seen. Compelling. 10/10.

By Kate Weinberg