You Will Know Me (Abbott)

You Will Know Me 
Megan Abbott, 2016
Little, Brown and Co.
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316231077


Summary
An audacious new novel about family and ambition.

How far will you go to achieve a dream? That's the question a celebrated coach poses to Katie and Eric Knox after he sees their daughter Devon, a gymnastics prodigy and Olympic hopeful, compete.

For the Knoxes there are no limits—until a violent death rocks their close-knit gymnastics community and everything they have worked so hard for is suddenly at risk.

As rumors swirl among the other parents, Katie tries frantically to hold her family together while also finding herself irresistibly drawn to the crime itself.

What she uncovers—about her daughter's fears, her own marriage, and herself—forces Katie to consider whether there's any price she isn't willing to pay to achieve Devon's dream.

From a writer with "exceptional gifts for making nerves jangle and skin crawl" (Janet Maslin), You Will Know Me is a breathless rollercoaster of a novel about the desperate limits of parental sacrifice, furtive desire, and the staggering force of ambition. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1971
• Where—near Detroit, Michigan, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Michigan; Ph.D., New York University
• Awards—Edgar Award for Outstanding Fiction
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York


Megan Abbott is an American author of crime fiction and a non-fiction analyst of hardboiled crime fiction. Her novels and short stories have drawn from and re-worked classic subgenres of crime writing, with a female twist.

Abbott grew up in suburban Detroit and graduated from the University of Michigan. She is married to Joshua Gaylord, a New School professor who writes fiction under his own name and the pseudonym "Alden Bell."

Abbott was influenced by film noir, classic noir fiction, and Jeffrey Eugenides's novel The Virgin Suicides. Two of her novels reference notorious crimes. The Song is You (2007) is based around the disappearance of Jean Spangler in 1949, and Bury Me Deep (2009) is based on the 1931 case of Winnie Ruth Judd, who was dubbed the "Trunk Murderess."

Abbott has won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for outstanding fiction. Time named her one of the "23 Authors That We Admire" in 2011.

Works
2005 - Die a Little
2007 - The Song Is You
2007 - Queenpin (2008 Edgar Award; 2008 Barry Award)
2009 - Bury Me Deep
2011 - The End of Everything
2012 - Dare Me
2014 - The Fever
2016 - You Will Know Me
(Author bio from Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/9/2016.)

Book Reviews
What Megan Abbott knows, as so many maestros of the heebie-jeebies do, is that it's not strangers who are scary; it's the people you think you know and love.... Abbott…is in top form in this novel. She resumes her customary role of black cat, opaque and unblinking, filling her readers with queasy suspicion at every turn.... You Will Know Me revisits some of the author's favorite themes—community hysteria, the chaos of adolescent sexuality—but with a slight twist. Usually, teen-girl misanthropy and anxiety figure prominently into Ms. Abbott's novels. Here, the author is far more interested in the way adults recapitulate teenage behaviors, fretting and sniping and stirring the pot.
Jennifer Senior - New York Times


 [B]rilliant.... There's a stroke of genius in this: The reader appreciates the satisfaction of the solution, which is simple, shocking and perfect. At the same time, the purpose of solving the mystery is, arguably, to undermine the idea that mysteries can ever be solved in a meaningful way.... We imagine we have our bearings, and then the murder knocks us off course. Then with each new fact that emerges, a piece of what we thought we knew is dislodged, leaving in its place a mystifying blank patch. By the end of the novel, everything...is an unanswerable question. All of this Abbott pulls off with breathtaking skill.
Sophie Hannah - New York Times Book Review


[Abbott's] books are driven as much by intricate character development and rhythmic sentences as they are by plot. They could easily be shelved with literary fiction.
Lucy Feldman - Wall Street Journal


Megan Abbott must have ice in her veins. In hijacking young-adult fiction for her own devious grown-up purposes, she writes from such a chilly remove you may want to turn up the thermostat. But the underlying tension she sustains is so beautifully unbearable, you may be unable to leave the couch.
Lloyd Sachs - Chicago Tribune


What puts flesh on the bones of Abbott's flying cheetah of suspense is her insight into parenting, marriage, and various sorts of interpersonal rivalry.... The characters of the adult women in this book, none completely likable, are knowingly depicted.... Abbott [is] above other writers in this genre, making her something of a Stephen King, whose work hangs right on the edge of the literary while making your skin crawl.
Marion Winik - Newsday


Megan Abbott is the mistress of noir.
Sarah Bryan Miller - St. Louis Post-Dispatch


Abbott seems to tap into that thing that makes ordinary teen girls so dangerous in that toxic mix of hormones and lack of sense of self, and then she dials it up a tick or two to homicidal.
Richard Alley - Memphis Flyer


The twists are good, as they are in any page-turner worth its salt. But Abbott is exceptional because she writes characters that are as careful as her plotting.
Kevin Nguyen - GQ.com


[You Will Know Me] will keep you glued to your beach blanket.
Marie Claire


You Will Know Me is the kind of tense, haunting tale that only Megan Abbott could tell, and once again cements her place as one of the most talented storytellers currently working in any genre.
Barry Lee Dejasu - New York Journal of Books


(Starred review.) [A]piercing look at what one family will sacrifice in the name of making their daughter a champion.... Abbott keenly examines the pressures put on girls' bodies and the fierce, often misguided love parents have for their children.
Publishers Weekly


In true Abbott style, nothing is predictable here; the plot consistently confounds expectations with its clever twists and turns. Verdict: Admirers of Patricia Highsmith, Laura Lippman, and Kimberly Pauley (Ask Me) are in for a treat. New readers have a backlist to explore! —Frances Thorsen, Chronicles of Crime Bookshop, Victoria, BC
Library Journal


(Starred review.) [E]veryday lives changed forever by an exceptional individual—in this case an Olympic gymnastics hopeful.... Being a parent is hard. Being a parent to an anomaly is something else entirely. Abbott proves herself a master of fingernails-digging-into-your-palms suspense.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for You Will Know Me...then take off on your own:

1. Who do you find more disturbing in this book: teenagers or adults? Talk about the grownups and the way their behavior mimics that of teenagers...or vice versa.

2. Why in particular does Katie Knox resent the other parents who try to "drag her into their little circle, their gym drama, their coven"?

3. How does Megan Abbott depict the world of female gymnastics? What are its contradictions in terms of the way the sport ages the girls yet restrains their maturity?

4. What hardships does gymnastics impose on the body? Discuss how the sport offers girls a means of mastering pain and taking control of their bodies. Is this discipline admirable, a good thing? What do you think, for instance, of Devon who endures the pain and never once cries?

5. Put yourself in the shoes of the Knoxes. What would you do if you were the parents of a child like Devon, "who worked harder and wanted something more than either of them ever had"?

6. Abbott is a master of deception: she drops a hint or clue with one hand, but subverts what you think you know with the other. At which point were you fairly sure of something, only to have the rug pulled out from under you?

7. Who do you find most frightening in You Will Know Me? Which character troubles you the most?

8. What is the thematic significance of the title? How well do we really want to know someone? How well CAN we really know anyone?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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