Book Review, Elizabeth L. Silver, Fiction, SephiPiderWitch, The Execution of Noa P. Singleton

The Execution of Noa P. Singleton – Elizabeth L. Silver

The Execution of Noa P. SingletonThe Execution of Noa P. Singleton was a very interesting and unique book.  Its about a woman, Noa P. Singleton who is on death row for killing a pregnant woman.  Its told in the first person, by Noa herself.  She is unapologetic and seemingly unremoreseful.  She has 6 months left till her execution date.  During her time in prison, she has had very few visitors save the media and attorneys. Then she is visited by Marlene Dixon, the mother of the woman she is on death row for killing and a high powered attorney.  She says she has had a change of heart and no long believes in the death penalty and wants to help Noa’s sentence be commuted to life imprisonment instead.  Marlene brings with her a young man named Oliver to help her.  They want her to tell her story on the reason that it will help them in building the case that could spare her life. The story is told in the form of journal entries and Noa speaks of her life on death row, the tedium of being kept in a cell for 23 hours of the day and allowed outside for 1 hour.  She seems to be indifferent to this as she seems to be about everything. Marlene does add another voice later in the book as she begins to write letters to her deceased daughter Sarah.  And in these letters, you begin to see a very calculating and vindictive person.  This creates another level to the mystery and you begin to start questioning what really happened. Noa begins to tell her life story to Oliver, slowly unfurling to him a far more complex person than he originally thought.  He begins to do his own investigating and what he discovers leads him to believe that Noa didn’t get a fair shake and hopes to try and get her a new trial with what he uncovers. I have noticed that a lot of people seemed to dislike this book or only slightly like it.  Mostly because of the vagueness and indifference of Noa, and not enough from the other characters.  I disagree with this.  I found the book to be written in a very unique and haunting voice and wonder if this is what might be expected of a woman who was this close to her execution on death row. I think its that people want a more “likeable” character in Noa.  Or, they want her to be a true sociopath.  What they find is neither of these, but a woman who is resigned, indifferent, bored.  Its only in her journal that the story of what happened begins to fully unfold.  Her father finding her just shortly before the murder.  The victim, his young lover, a girl her age that he met while he was trying to track her down. She learns about Sarah when she meets Marlene, who wants her to break the two of them up because she doesn’t feel Noa’s father is good enough for her daughter.  More and more layers begin to develop as the story progresses. I found it to be a very complex story told in a very authentic voice.  I would not be surprised to find there are many in prison that would have a similar tone.  Noa would be barely likeable to most people as she doesn’t even seem to care much about her father or anyone else in her life.  So, in that way, she was a sociopath.  But, she was not only lacking in empathy, but lacking in emotion almost entirely.  Its a haunted tale about how things are rarely how they appear and guilt and innocence are often a multi-layered thing on the same coin. Its an excellent novel and even more so given its a first novel.  Well worth the time to read.  I, for one, will watch for the next book from this young author. SephiPiderWitch February 2015
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