Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You is not your standard whodunit. It is less about uncovering a singular truth than it is about dissecting the nature of truth itself—what it means, who gets to tell it, and how it’s remembered, retold, and recontextualized over time. Blending the intellectual rigor of literary fiction with the atmospheric suspense of a psychological thriller, Makkai delivers a haunting narrative that taps into America’s true crime obsession, the evolving ethics of memory, and the unresolved trauma of adolescence.
Plot Overview: The Past Is Never Past
Bodie Kane, a successful film professor and true crime podcaster, is invited to teach a course at her former boarding school, Granby, in New Hampshire. The invitation is as flattering as it is disconcerting; her time at Granby in the 1990s was riddled with loneliness, alienation, and tragedy—most significantly, the murder of her roommate, Thalia Keith, during their senior year.
The case had a neat resolution—or so it seemed. Omar Evans, the school’s Black athletic trainer, was convicted and remains imprisoned. But returning to Granby reopens old questions. As Bodie guides her students through podcasting projects on the school’s history, one student chooses to explore Thalia’s murder. And soon, Bodie finds herself caught between a personal reckoning and a public re-investigation. What begins as academic curiosity becomes a moral imperative: Did they convict the wrong man? And what was Bodie’s own role in the story she thought she’d left behind?
Narrative Structure: Fragmented Questions, Unrelenting Tension
Makkai constructs her novel with the precision of an archivist and the artistry of a playwright. Told mostly from Bodie’s point of view, the novel cleverly uses second-person narration to address Mr. Bloch—Thalia’s former music teacher, one of the many adult figures lingering on the periphery of Bodie’s memories. This choice builds a prosecutorial tension, inviting readers to act as both jury and confidant.
The narrative toggles between 2018 and the events of 1995, as Bodie examines long-buried memories under the scrutiny of adulthood, post-#MeToo reflection, and a cultural landscape saturated with true crime podcasts and social media sleuths. The pacing is deliberate, almost forensic, but Makkai’s language—elegant, sharp, emotionally intelligent—makes the unraveling feel both intimate and inevitable.
Characters: The Ghosts That Live Within Us
Bodie Kane
Bodie is a compelling narrator—not unreliable, but deeply uncertain. She’s intellectual, emotionally guarded, and haunted not just by trauma but by complicity. Makkai resists simplifying Bodie’s guilt; it is layered, ambiguous, shaped as much by inaction as by oversight. Her present-day success makes her introspection even more profound—how does someone move on from a story that never ended?
Thalia Keith
Though absent from most of the book in real time, Thalia is its moral and emotional anchor. She is remembered through snapshots, stage roles, and schoolyard moments—her presence spectral, reconstructed through technology, memory, and obsession. Makkai masterfully critiques the cultural fetishization of “dead white girls” even as she gives Thalia depth beyond the clickbait headline.
Omar Evans
The convicted man, who has always maintained his innocence, represents the systemic failings of justice: racism, classism, and rushed conclusions. Makkai doesn’t make him a martyr but rather a mirror reflecting society’s tendency to sacrifice the vulnerable for the comfort of resolution.
Supporting Cast
From the enigmatic Mr. Bloch to the cynical but brilliant students Bodie teaches, the novel is populated with characters who each carry their own version of the truth. Everyone has blind spots. Everyone is flawed. And everyone has some questions.
Themes and Critical Analysis
1. Memory as Evidence
Makkai treats memory like a crime scene—altered by time, distorted by trauma, and easily manipulated by narrative. Bodie’s recollections are often conflicted, making readers question not just what happened, but how it was framed. The novel ultimately suggests that memory is not a fixed archive but a living, breathing testimony—open to interpretation, vulnerable to revision.
2. The Ethics of True Crime
This book is both a product and critique of the true crime boom. Bodie’s own podcasting fame raises uncomfortable questions: When does storytelling become exploitation? What does justice look like when it’s packaged for entertainment? As readers, we are complicit in this consumption, and Makkai doesn’t let us off the hook.
3. Racial Injustice and Institutional Power
Through Omar Evans’ wrongful conviction and the school’s quiet erasures, Makkai exposes the rot at the core of elite institutions—how prestige and appearances often override morality and accountability. The novel doesn’t scream its political commentary; it whispers it with damning clarity.
4. Feminism and Female Agency
Bodie’s journey is also one of feminist awakening. Her reflections on grooming, power dynamics, and internalized silence feel both contemporary and timeless. The book subtly weaves in how women are socialized to doubt their instincts and suppress their voices—even when injustice stares them in the face.
Praise: A Story that Resonates Beyond the Final Page
Literary Style: Makkai’s writing is lyrical without being florid, intellectual without being inaccessible. Her voice is confident, and her characters breathe with realism.
Narrative Ambition: The novel doesn’t just seek to solve a crime—it questions the very notion of closure. It asks what justice really means when it’s twenty years too late.
Cultural Relevance: This is a book that speaks directly to the cultural moment, offering both critique and compassion for a society caught between voyeurism and vigilance.
Critiques: Where the Novel Stumbles
While I Have Some Questions for You is undeniably powerful, it is not without its imperfections:
Pacing in the Middle Third
The narrative occasionally slows down, particularly as Bodie gets more deeply entangled in academic and personal minutiae. Readers hoping for fast-paced thrills may find themselves impatient.
Overcrowded Thematic Scope
The book tackles so much—true crime ethics, racial injustice, feminism, memory, elite education—that some themes risk dilution. There are moments where a more focused narrative might have had greater impact.
Ambiguity as Closure
The ending is satisfyingly open-ended for literary readers but might frustrate those looking for concrete resolution. Makkai seems less interested in whodunit than in whydunit, and that may not be every thriller reader’s cup of tea.
Rebecca Makkai’s Evolution as a Novelist
Fans of Makkai’s National Book Award-finalist The Great Believers will recognize her signature strengths: deep empathy, complex structure, and a fierce commitment to social truth. But I Have Some Questions for You marks a bold turn toward crime fiction—one that refuses to play by genre conventions. Where The Great Believers focused on the AIDS crisis through a compassionate lens, this novel turns the spotlight on institutions of privilege and the silences they foster.
Similar Books You Might Enjoy
If I Have Some Questions for You resonated with you, consider exploring:
The Secret History by Donna Tartt – For a similarly elite academic setting with a slow-unfolding mystery.
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell – For a chilling exploration of grooming, memory, and complicity.
In the Woods by Tana French – For the psychological depth and layered narrative.
Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka – For a thought-provoking critique of crime narratives.
Conclusion: An Intelligent, Unnerving Mystery with Literary Soul
Rebecca Makkai’s I Have Some Questions for You is not merely a mystery—it is a reckoning. It interrogates how stories are told, whose voices are heard, and what justice might mean in a world that prefers clean narratives to complex truths. With elegant prose and penetrating insight, Makkai invites us to question our assumptions—not just about a decades-old murder, but about ourselves.
Though not perfect, this novel is urgent, intelligent, and unsettling in all the right ways. It leaves readers, quite literally, with questions. And sometimes, that’s the only honest way to end a story.