I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Death of the Black-Haired Girl by Robert Stone
Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date November 12, 2013
Source: Netgalley
Genres: General Fiction
Goodreads
In an elite college in a once-decaying New England city, Steven Brookman has come to a decision. A brilliant but careless professor, he has determined that for the sake of his marriage, and his soul, he must extract himself from his relationship with Maud Stack, his electrifying student, whose papers are always late and too long yet always incandescent. But Maud is a young woman whose passions are not easily contained or curtailed, and their union will quickly yield tragic and far-reaching consequences.
As in Robert Stone’s most acclaimed novels, here he conjures a complex moral universe where nothing is black and white, even if the characters—always complicated, always compelling—wish it were. The stakes of Brookman and Maud’s relationship prove higher than either one could have anticipated, pitting individuals against one another and against the institutions meant to protect them.
Death of the Black-Haired Girl is a powerful tale of infidelity, accountability, the allure of youth, the promise of absolution, and the notion that madness is everywhere, in plain sight.
- Black haired girl’s (Maud) form of death was unexpected
- That was the only unexpected thing
- Characters were as flat as cardboard yet I enjoyed the writing in itself
- The culprit for Maud’s death reminded me of Daisy from The Great Gatsby
- Teacher/Student affairs have been done before and The Death of the Black-Haired Girl didn’t stand out from the pack merely missing the mark
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