BookLife Review by Carol O'Day: The Fury (Alex Michaelides, author)
murder mystery, whodunit, whydunit, Greek Island, UK, London, movie star, unreliable narrator,play within a play, unrequited love, betrayal, plot twists
Fans of The Silent Patient and The Maidens, eagerly awaited author Alex Michaelides’ new book, The Fury. For me, it fell short.
Lana Turner is a mega-movie star who retired from making films to raise her son, Leo. Twice married, Lana owns a private Greek island where she escapes with friends to relax and restore outside of the public eye. On this island, called Aura, ferocious winds blow and periodically prevent access. Lana invites friends to the island one Easter, and before the weekend is over, someone is dead. Dual questions arise: who killed the victim, and why, as almost everyone on the guest could have had a motive to do so. There are love triangles, financial schemes and betrayals galore.
However, the weaknesses of the book are too central not to mention. First, Michaelides relies heavily on his narrator, Eliott Chase, Lana’s long time friend. Eliott secretly loves his friend but his love is unrequited. Eliott, however, is not sympathetic in his longing. He is a wholly unreliable (and increasingly irritating) narrator. Michaelides awards Eliott a role that outsizes the depth of Eliott as a character. The author slow-drips the backstory to the reader through the Eliott, as a gatekeeper narrator. The tone and this unreliable narrator device feels contrived. Eliott opens with an overly intimate direct appeal to the reader that he will share the story of this murder honestly--red flag anyone? Over the course of the novel, and on multiple occasions, Eliott backtracks and reveals to us “dear readers” that he has not been honest with us; in fact he has withheld significant key elements of the story.
In addition to an underwhelming narrator device, The Fury’s plot stumbles over itself in an attempt to deliver murder mystery-worthy twists and surprises. By the third (or fourth) twist, I succumbed to an eye-roll and conscious thought that the author was being too clever for the book’s own good. Perhaps the characters’ extreme privilege (movie stars, wealth, jet-setting, private islands and luxury shopping) diminish the ability of most readers to attach, identify or align with any of them in a meaningful way, or perhaps the book felt self-consciously written to be a Hollywood movie. If you enjoy celebrities behaving badly, exotic Greek islands, or uber-twisty murder mystery plots, give this one a spin.
If you are a Michaelides fan, support independent bookstores by purchasing The Fury or Michaelides’ other works referenced above using the links below:
