Bones of the Story

 

The Bones of the Story / Carol Goodman
NY: William Morrow, c2023.
326 p.

If you like academic gothic, I’d dare to suggest that Carol Goodman might be an author for you! Most of her novels take place in and around schools and academia, and I’ve really enjoyed most of her works. The latest, The Bones of the Story, is set during a wintery school reunion. A group of high achievers is coming back to Briarwood Academy, where they all belonged to an elite writer’s group led by a charismatic professor, after 25 years away.

But during their last weeks of their final year, a girl went missing, followed by a faculty death. This group has been keeping dark secrets for many years, and it’s all about to shatter around them. 

There are a variety of characters here; as always in Goodman’s books, we’re viewing the story from the vantage point of an outsider. In this case, it’s Nell Portman, now a dean at Briarwood. She started there as a scholarship student, scrabbling her way into this dazzling world of rich and privileged students. She’s still there, and still haunted. When all her fellow students return for the fancy event that had been planned, they end up being the only ones left on campus as a winter storm rolls in & cancels the shindig – all you need now is Poirot. 

They start to reminisce, trying to avoid all the prickly things they know but don’t want to discuss. The only ones still on campus, besides these entangled writers, are Ruth, the efficient departmental secretary, and Nina, a student who strongly reminds Nell of herself years before. Eventually one of them, who didn’t come to the gathering, arrives: he’s the local police chief. 

And the only student missing is their shining star, the centre of all their high school lives, the glorious and promising Laine, who had cut off contact with everyone after graduation but who still manages to shape all their interactions. 

Then one by one they begin to die, in the same gruesome ways they’d described in a long-ago writing assignment about their deepest fears. Who will be left to tell the tale? 

This is spooky, atmospheric, and well-plotted. I enjoyed the writing and all of these annoyingly self-absorbed, self-important characters. Goodman is able to create characters who are appallingly selfish and petty, but who also make you feel like you know them. There are ‘types’ among the characters but the story moves quickly and uses these elements well, and you don’t really know what’s going to happen as the story begins. I’d guessed by about ¾ through the book what was actually going on, but the descriptions and revelations are so well handled that it was an exciting read. Dark academia indeed! Great pick for timely seasonal reading.