The fusion when the correct author finds the perfect subject matter is much like an alchemical reaction—a bond that is immediately felt and virtually undeniable. If it happens with a debut novel, it’s almost like magic. Case in point, You Know What You Did by K. T. Nguyen.
You Know What You Did is the story of Annie Shaw, a Vietnamese immigrant living a happy life with her husband and daughter in a D. C. suburb. When her mother—who lives in a run-down carriage house on their property—dies unexpectedly, it triggers Annie’s descent into madness.
Annie suffers from “Contamination OCD”—which largely involves excessive avoidance of germs and the fear of pustules, non-symmetrical voids, and the like—but she mostly had this under control through medication and therapy. The death of her mother—with whom she has had a strained relationship—proves to be more than Annie’s mind can handle, setting in motion a spiral that causes this otherwise healthy woman to begin to question every decision, action, and event that occurs around her.
The Shaw family is not immune from the typical stresses of everyday life. Annie’s husband Duncan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist about to cover a high-profile story in Syria, while their teenaged daughter, Tabby, is walking that treacherous divide between adolescence and adulthood. Annie’s mother—a refugee from the Vietnam War—was a hoarder who preferred her solitude while carrying excessive anger and resentment about the trajectory of her life. Formerly able to juggle all of this along with her burgeoning art career, Annie can feel it all slipping away, with no ability to rationally address it.
When an elderly art patron, who is also Annie’s friend, goes missing, the police begin to suspect that Annie might have been involved. As she tries to piece together what happened, other complications—including but not limited to, a stalker—plague Annie’s life. And her mental decline has her recalling past events—both before leaving Vietnam and during her year’s growing up with a demanding mother. These new worries only serve to elevate Annie’s self-doubt. Could she have done something really bad?
K. T. Nguyen has written a solid work of psychological horror. Readers are forced—many times in very uncomfortable ways—to viscerally experience Annie’s obsessive compulsive behavior. Nguyen’s style is fine-tuned to such an extent that sometimes the very act of turning the book’s pages seems like a bad decision. You Know What You Did is most definitely not a novel for the faint-hearted.
Ultimately, You Know What You Did is a story of generational trauma, the long-standing effects of War, and the unconditional bonds of motherhood. K. T. Nguyen’s sumptuous prose lures the reader in, only to allow the darkest of hearts to strike some deadly blows. The plotting of this novel is as intricate as a spider’s web and serves the very same purpose—to capture its prey (in this case, that’s you, the reader) and keep them stunned and immobile until the very end.
K. T. Nguyen’s You Know What You Did will surely be recognized as one of the best debut novels of the year and starts a career that seems poised to ignore expectations while forging an individual path straight through the crime fiction genre.
BUY LINKS: You Know What You Did by K. T. Nguyen
Disclaimer: A print galley of this title was provided to BOLO Books by the publisher. No promotion was promised and the above is an unbiased review of the novel.
