Notes on an Execution- Review
This book has been recommended by so many users on TikTok. They advertised it as a poignant and original look into our obsessions with true crime and serial killers, but told from the perspective we don’t often hear- female victims of the male serial killer. This was what I got by reading Danya Kukafka’s sophomore novel. It was a compelling psychological deconstruction of what makes a serial killer, starting from his childhood to end of his life. Intertwined are the stories of women that his actions have affected, one way or another. Although at times, I felt that some happenings are too convoluted and perhaps not the most realistic, Kukafka is such a masterful storyteller I did not mind it too much.
‘Notes on an Execution’ follows Ansel Parker, a man on death row for murder of four women. He is scheduled to be executed in twelve hours, but Ansel is trying to escape death row and make his Theory public. At the same time, a much bigger portion of the novel is dedicated to women that have crossed paths with him-his mother Lavender, Hazel his wife’s twin sister, and Saffi, the detective that was responsible for finally capturing him. Through this narration coming back and forth and spanning years, Kukafka offers an exploration of so many important and ever present topics, such as domestic violence, foster care but also love and care.
Ansel is far from an underdeveloped, as we do get a lot of his personality and choices explained and shown throughout the novel, but this book is not truly about him in the sense that he is not the main character. Although he is a serial killer, the question that I kept asking myself was whether their deaths were preventable? Ansel has been betrayed by the system and until he started committing the crimes he did, not a lot of people cared about him. He was marked as a loser and a weirdo, abandoned by his parents from the start of his life. The descriptions of how he heard his younger brother’s screams thinking he died were heart breaking. Ansel is set to die and he is petrified of it, giving him some more humanity and introducing the discussion of justice of death penalty. Kukafka does not offer her opinion, but does make a point to emphasize how much of a wasted life he was. Could he have done something more, had he been given a chance?
Still, this book is about the three women and every other woman in this world.The stories of women in this book are equally tragic and triumphant in a way. The first woman introduced was Lavender, Ansel’s mother. She starts off as a young woman isolated by her husband, starved and beaten even during her two pregnancies. At first, I could not help but judge her for leaving her two children behind, but the more I thought about it, the more I could not. Who is to say that any one of us would behave differently in that situation? I hesitate to say that Lavender had a happy resolution but in her meeting her granddaughter and forming a relationship, she starts healing a wound. Hazel was another woman who came into contact with Ansel, as her sister marries him and becomes his victim. The fact that Hazel is a twin makes the whole story that much more heartbreaking, especially after Jenny manages to escape Ansel.
Finally, Saff, a young detective who met Ansel in foster care that finally brings him to justice, opens up so many topics about how police and the public treat killers. Explicitly, she talks about how Ansel is the one that gets so much attention as a serial killer, but there are so many murdered women that nobody writes about. In the moment she finally gathers evidence against Ansel, she is working on a case of domestic violence where a man killed his wife, only significant because of a police officer’s error. Still, Saff and her colleagues see murdered women every day and nobody bats an eye. Why is Ansel so significant?
The impact of this novel is so hard to describe into words. The writing style and the technical elements blend seamlessly to tell this powerful story and give voice to those impacted by this kind of horrific violence. Although the topic is so heavy, I could not put the book down and wanted to know more about what is going to happen. The tone is introspective, but Kukafka still manages to keep the real tension going throughout. I was wondering if Ansel will really get executed until the last page of the novel and was asking myself how I felt about that decision. I was hoping that somehow they will find that he did not kill his victims and that they are actually alive, which of course was hopeless wishing.
All in all, this is one of the best books I have read this year and only the third 5 star read. (After R. K. Kuang’s ‘Yellowface’ and Susanna Clarke’s ‘Piranesi’) I have already put Kukafka’s first novel ‘Girl in Snow’ on my TBR.
Did you read this novel? What did you think? Did you read Kukafka’s first novel? What do you think about society’s obsession with serial killers and true crime?
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