fiction

Globe and Mail reviews Tell Everything

This past weekend Claire Cameron’s review of Tell Everything by Sally Cooper appeared in The Globe and Mail Books section. Here is a portion of that review. To read the full review click here.

“On Sufjan Stevens’s critically acclaimed album Illinois, there is a song that sounds like a lullaby. The first time I heard the song was in a crowded room. I couldn’t catch the lyrics, so checked the iPod. The title? John Wayne Gacy, Jr., after the notorious Chicago serial killer. Shocked by the contrast, I listened more closely and heard Gacy’s story, filled with intimate and horrific details of his life and crimes. Sally Cooper’s second novel, Tell Everything, is compelling in a similar way. It is lyrical, intimate and horrifying.”

“Cooper slowly peels back layers in search of the real lives and motivations behind the media maelstrom of a sensational trial. In a world that prefers clear answers, this is a bold attempt to show how roles can be blurred. She uses the complicated relationship between Ramona and Pauline to show how the predator might also be a victim, or how the victim might play a part in her capture. By exploring these grey areas while holding a firm moral line on what constitutes abuse, Cooper has achieved an impressive and delicate balance.”

“At the end of his song about Gacy, Stevens sings, “I am just like him.” It’s not true. Stevens is not a serial killer, nor is Cooper a sexual predator. But they both show us the human side of these crimes, rather than taking the simpler route of dismissing the perpetrators as monsters.”

“Far from glamorizing the crimes, they show how you might be able to understand the motivations for these crimes and, if you look down deep, a part of you might be able to relate – or to find them in yourself , a far more terrifying insight.”
- Claire Cameron, The Globe and Mail, February 23, 2008

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About the author

Erin is a publicist for Dundurn Press. She reads a wide variety of books (maybe even too many!) and wields a vast amount of positively optimistic power over what should and shouldn't be done in the universe.