Penny Zang’s atmospheric and claustrophobic debut novel has it all: suspicious deaths, a fractured female friendship and a Sylvia Plath suicide club set in the angsty, grunge-driven 90s. So let’s dive in…
Twenty years after a mysterious rift ended their friendship, Nikki commits suicide, and Sadie becomes involved with Nikki’s husband, Harrison. The plot unfolds across two timelines: the present, where Sadie navigates a new life, and the past, when both women were college freshmen in Baltimore. The present-day story, from Sadie’s perspective, shows her life one year after Nikki’s death. She’s now living with Nikki’s grieving husband, Harrison, and their baby, trying to adjust to the perfect suburban lifestyle. But Nikki seems to be everywhere, haunting her from beyond the grave.
Nikki’s story takes us back to their time at Loch Raven College, the only Catholic women only college in Maryland. It’s also the year that their friendship ended. One of their classes was Professor Weedler’s Dead Girls in Literature, Film, and Pop Culture, focusing on deceased female icons like Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Billie Holiday, Natalie Wood and, of course, Sylvia Plath. While the students worship Professor Weedler, Sadie and Nikki are repulsed by his unhealthy fascination with dead women. The novel references society’s obsession with and romanticisation of celebrity suicide known as the Werther effect, where highly publicised suicides lead to an increase in the suicide rate.
Going back as far as the 1960s, there have been multiple deaths of Sylvia Plath fans, known as the Sylvia Club, a group of girls with black boots and smeared mascara who wallowed in their sadness. The rumour is that every year a freshman kills herself, and all their ghosts remain to haunt the campus. This particularly affected Nikki, whose mother committed suicide, and she decided to look into their deaths.
No Sadie doubts that Nikki’s death was a suicide. She’s convinced that her friend is sending her clues from beyond the grave, whether it’s a reference only she would understand in a newsletter Nikki sent, or information she finds in a folder containing Nikki’s research on the Sylvia Club. What if Nikki found something she shouldn’t have?
Sadie’s mental state is evident to us as readers; she is tired, anxious, and most of all, feels guilty. We empathise with her situation, odd as it may be. The references to Plath and Sadie’s experience as a new mother highlight the challenges women face in balancing professional success with domestic expectations, something many young mothers will identify with.
Doll Parts is not a fast-paced thriller. Instead, it relies on psychological tension. It explores the impact of the past on the present and the complexity of female friendships. The characters are complex and flawed. Nikki is brilliant, broken and obsessed with death, while Sadie is her counterpoint, a wild child now trapped in the life meant for her friend. Their dynamic is the core of the novel even though they are difficult characters to warm up to.
What distinguishes Doll Parts from similar book is the setting and sense of place. The atmosphere of the campus, with its gothic charm and underlying sense of menace, is the perfect, albeit unsettling, backdrop. Nikki’s favourite time on campus is autumn, with “…the vibration of cathedral bells, the smell of rotting leaf piles—everything made prettier as it died.”
Penny Zang paints a vivid picture for her readers, and both the place and the period elicit a strong sense of nostalgia – depending on your frame of reference. Readers are transported back to the 1990s grunge era with music references and a playlist as an addendum. The title itself is a reference to Doll Parts, a song by Hole, the band fronted by Courtney Love, Kurt Cobain’s wife. This not only contributes to the zeitgeist but also aptly references another suicide, that of Cobain. Whether you are craving an atmospheric novel set in the 90s or revel in intricate dark academia stories, Doll Parts will hit the spot.
Also see The Department by Jacqueline Faber or This is How We End Things by RJ Jacobs.
Source Books
Print/Kindle/iBook
£9.19
CFL Rating: 4 Stars
