Beukes’ "The Shining Girls"—Disturbing, Dark, and Delightful

Title: The Shining Girls
Author: Lauren Beukes
Pages: 375

Price: $25.99
ISBN: 978-0-316-21685-2

Publisher: Mulholland Books
(Little, Brown and Company)

On-Sale Date: June 4, 2013
Genre: Science-Fiction/Crime

Source: Advanced Reading Copy

Lauren Beukes is a South African native and award-winning novelist obsessed with morbidity.  Her science-fiction novels Moxyland, Zoo City, her latest, The Shining Girls, and even her photo on her website, center on darkness.  Popular crime shows like CSI and Criminal Minds meet The Twilight Zone in the sinister, time-traveling crime novel, The Shining Girls.

The House, which features prominently in Beukes’ novel, always defaults to November 22, 1931.  It’s the secret to time-travel and the inspiration for Harper Curtis’ murderous madness.  The House’s occupants can propel to any year and day between the default day and 1993 so Harper can complete his destiny of maiming, disemboweling, and killing his shining girls—girls who literally shine for him since they thrive and prosper in their futures.  Objects in the House’s bedroom belong to various shining girls, and they thrum, jitter, and shine when it’s time to kill again.  He finds the girls and their objects when they are young, and he leaves them at the crime scene of another shining girl years in the future or past.

Kirby Mazrachi, the lone shining girl who survived his attack, is obsessed with her attempted murder, so she tracks down Dan Velasquez, the homicide reporter who covered her case, and interns for him at the Chicago Sun-Times.  Kirby, determined to catch the limping lunatic, Harper, uses her new-found resources at the newspaper to investigate what the police must have missed and to unravel the truth scattered throughout Chicago over six decades.

Beukes writes in a non-linear style which ensures this book is not a mindless read.  The reader embarks on a convoluted journey on the first page and needs to mentally (or physically) take notes at each turn in order to follow the timeline and character shifts.  Just like a real murder investigation, details are revealed in an order that makes absolutely no sense until it starts to connect.  To truly appreciate the book’s complexity and understand the jumping narrative, one must never zone out for a second because every sentence is essential.

But even with a reader’s meticulous attention, some questions are left unanswered.  How did the House operate?  Why Harper?  What happened in his past to make him psychotic?  Why did certain girls shine even when they seemed to lack the “burning with potential” characteristic required of a shining girl?  Beukes had the potential to answer some of these questions.  For instance, in one chapter, the reader gets a glint of Harper as a child, fascinated by torturing chickens and witnessing his brother run over by their truck, “[h]is pelvis [making] a sharp snapping sound like a pinecone in the fireplace.”  There should have been more details on why this pleased Harper so much, and what the connection is to the shining girls.

Beukes, however, does provide some solid background information that allows the reader to speculate about the House and how time-travel functions.  These unanswered questions aren’t necessarily essential to the story, and they would slow down the action.  Beukes does a great job keeping the flow of a novel that if executed poorly would have worked as well as a blind man on a scavenger hunt.  Thin threads connect details placed sporadically throughout the book, but eventually, the whole picture pieces together, like a constellation.  Although, connecting the dots in different ways may create a new picture.  Maybe “[t]here are patterns because we try to find them.  A desperate attempt at order because we can’t face the terror that it might all be random.”

These issues, however, are just minor quibbles in this gripping and sensational novel since the creative approach outshines these small problems in The Shining Girls. Beukes’ innovative setup is not the only thing that keeps the reader intrigued.  The book is full of fresh images and figurative language, some of which illuminate the book with humor and beauty—“The ice on the lake shifts and cracks musically like windchimes made of broken glass”—while others are immensely disturbing—“Her guts have been strung from the trees like tinsel”—however, both drag the reader deeper into the demented, time-warped world of Harper Curtis and of those who shine for him.

Beukes’ characters are also strong and have powerful interactions.  Harper is by far the strongest character.  It’s amazing and disturbing how evocatively Beukes was able to capture the mind of a serial killer.  Harper’s chapters, which should be avoided directly before sleeping, leave the reader with sickening and frightening images.  The reader feels tainted after seeing and feeling what Harper loves to do.

The Shining Girls is evocative, graphic, and intense.  It’s a thrilling read that stabs the reader with shock and can make one feel sick to their stomach, as if they have been disemboweled themselves.  Every page has triggering content, so it’s difficult to read, but if one can handle it, read it.