"I'm thinking of ending things" by Iain Reid

An audio book.

The narrator, who's been going out with Jake for 7 weeks, is being driven to his parents' farmhouse. She thinks he's very clever and likes it when he's nerdy. There are interjected flash-forwards of people discussing a local atrocity committed by a male. She's been receiving calls from an old male who always says the same thing, about there being only 1 question. She sees the same phrase on graffiti. There are slightly odd, David Lynchian, details.

At the farm she sees an old picture of herself as a little girl. There are strange, grotesque paintings in the cellar. There are no photos of Jake though there are many arty close-ups of body parts. She hears the parents disagreeing. They are surprised when she tells them Jake has a job. They thank her for all she's done. They think she's been with Jake for a while.

It's below zero. On the way home he tells her he has a brother who imitated him. They end up a big, deserted school late in the night. Jake disappears. She goes into the school. The car disappears. She's locked in. She thinks she sees a janitor wearing rubber gloves. She wanders from room to room, distracting herself by speculating about life. She finds clothes she wore as a child. She finds Jake's clothes.

Then things go strange. I becomes we. The narrative becomes Beckettian. We've been wandering through the school for years. The atrocity was committed by a janitor. What gives life meaning? What gives it shape and depth? Can a life have meaning if you're alone? "We're all here together now, always me only me"

Other reviews

• Kirkus reviews
• Janette Wolf
• fictionphile
• Hannah Pittard (Reid ... supplements his first-person road-trip narrative with short, italicized, unattributed bits of dialogue in which a mysterious crime is being discussed: ... The suspense of Reid’s novel depends heavily on this interspersed dialogue ... While this bait-and-switch tactic is by no means a flaw — the early instances are especially effective in encouraging the reader to continue — by the novel’s end they come to feel more gimmicky than earned.)