the one where lenny gets a life
Lenny Marks is an elementary school teacher in Australia. She rides her bicycle to work every day. She visits the same grocery store every week, to buy the same things, to eat the same things each week. She spends her evenings with her favorite friends, the cast of Friends, as she watches the reruns on television and plays Scrabble against Monica Geller. Lenny has 36 copies of The Hobbit, which she rearranges from time to time. Sometimes by height. Sometimes by when she acquired them, from the one that had been her mother’s before hers, and on to the latest one she had bought. Her life is careful and regimented. Until she gets the letter.
The letter came to her in care of the school where she worked, and it was from the parole board. Lenny doesn’t want to read it and hides it deep in her bag. She does her best not to think about it. But then she starts getting calls from a woman who wants to talk to her about what’s going on with the parole board. Lenny starts ignoring the calls too.
Meanwhile, Lenny’s regimented life is starting to show some cracks. She gets invited to a pub with some of her coworkers, and she can’t figure out a way to say no. She ends up going to the pub, helping the team do well in the quiz, and drinking far more than she usually does. In addition, Lenny is having warm thoughts about Ned at the grocery store. They’d had conversations in the past about his favorite show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but now Lenny starts to wonder what it might be like to spend time with him outside of the grocery store.
The small cracks in Lenny’s world start to grow, and she finds herself blurring some facts from the past with the present. She sees a dog being abused and does something a little crazy to protect it. She breaks into her elderly neighbor’s house to find the woman on the floor, barely breathing. All those careful edges she’s built and maintained for years start to bend and splinter. At the point where the secrets of her past and the truths of her present collide, she starts to break open completely.
As Lenny finally starts to face her traumatic past, she finds that she has the strength and support to face the things that happened to her when she was a child. The sad secrets come to light, and Lenny’s understanding of her life and her choices becomes more clear. But will she be able to face the lies she told, or will she finally break?
Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder is a compelling story of toxic relationships and the path of healing. It’s humorous and heartbreaking, with layers of secrets and misunderstandings. Lenny was only a child when her family broke apart, and she could only understand or process so much of what was happening around her. As a child, she got only part of the story, and she made choices based on that childish understanding. But when things break open for her as an adult, she can finally get a fuller explanation of what had happened, and she can move forward with the understanding of an adult. It’s a fascinating journey, and the way author Kerryn Mayne has crafted this story is ingenious.
I listened to the audio book of Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder, narrated perfectly by Annie Maynard. Maynard brings Lenny’s voice to life through the entire story, making her a bit of a curiosity at the start of the story, then through her journey, she becomes a strong, actualized woman who takes action on her own behalf. Maynard never portrays Lenny as the victim, but keeps her thoughtful and caring throughout. I thought this book was so amazing, and the narration makes it even more striking.
A copy of the audio book for Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder was provided by Macmillan Audio, and egalleys were provided by St. Martin’s Press, both through NetGalley, with many thanks.
