Notes on an Execution by Danya Kakafka

A work of literary suspense that deconstructs the story of a serial killer on death row, told primarily through the eyes of the women in his life.

Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours. He knows what he’s done, and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls, years ago. But Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood. He hoped it wouldn’t end like this, not for him.

Through a kaleidoscope of women—a mother, a sister, a homicide detective—we learn the story of Ansel’s life. We meet his mother, Lavender, a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation; Hazel, twin sister to Ansel’s wife, inseparable since birth, forced to watch helplessly as her sister’s relationship threatens to devour them all; and finally, Saffy, the homicide detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy, exploring the rippling fissures that such destruction inevitably leaves in its wake.

Genre - Mystery Thriller

306 pages, Hardcover

First published January 25, 2022

Goodreads Choice Award - Nominee for Best Fiction (2022)

My Thoughts

This novel switches between two timelines: the day of Ansel’s execution and the more sprawling story of his life, from his childhood through to his present-day incarceration. The latter story line is primarily told from the point of view of three women whose lives are, in different ways, derailed by Ansel. They include his mother, Lavender, who flees a violent and abusive marriage, leaving her children behind, only to later seek them out; Saffy, a homicide detective who was tormented by Ansel as a child and eventually pursues and apprehends him; and Hazel, the twin sister of his wife.

Kukafka seems to undo some typical conventions, including the preoccupation with dead women, in order to offer a unique type of story. This novel is filled with living women; it ruminates on trauma, the criminal justice system and guilt. There is no question of who did what, or even why. Instead, it is the inevitability of Ansel’s execution and the moral issue of capital punishment that floods the novel with dread.

Notes on an Execution is in part a novel about the three women. But it is also true that Ansel remains at the heart of the novel, I never fully identified with Ansel, but that seems precisely the point: We don’t need to identify with him in order to understand that his capital punishment is a horror and an outrage. As much as the novel may wish to dismantle the mythos of the serial killer, in many ways, the Ansel who emerges — particularly in the sections centered on the various women — reinforces it.

I liked this novel a lot. Some of the charm was that the author sought to dismantle the conventions of the serial killer novel. The seduction of the serial killer narrative is difficult to shake, for reader and author alike, though. I kept watching, and I kept turning the pages. I give this book 4 stars.