Campaign for the American Reader: Pg. 69: "You Kill Me"

Alison Gaylin is a journalist who has covered the arts and entertainment for more than ten years. Her first novel, Hide Your Eyes, debuted in March, 2005 with nearly a quarter of a million copies in print. Its sequel, You Kill Me, was published last December.

I asked Alison to apply the "page 69 test" to her book; here is her reply:

Interestingly, page 69 of You Kill Me is almost all dialogue. It includes some information – seemingly unimportant – that winds up playing a key role in suspense toward the end of the book.

You Kill Me is the sequel to Hide Your Eyes, a novel in which pre-school teacher/off-off Broadway box office worker Samantha Leiffer witnesses the aftermath of a brutal murder and kills a serial killer. YKM takes place a year later, in fall, 2002. She’s moved in with Det. John Krull, and their relationship leaves a lot to be desired. Deeply affected by 9/11, the 6th precinct detective has become laconic and remote. They don’t communicate the way they used to, and Krull’s frequent, mysterious disappearances are making Sam distrust him. They’re rarely alone together and, true to form, they’re not alone on page 69. Instead, Sam and Krull are watching a Yankees game in their Stuyvessant Town apartment with Zachary Pierce, a very short, gym-addicted, shaved-headed detective friend of Krull’s who defines the term “overcompensation.”

Though not much happens in terms of action on this page, Pierce’s sudden explosion over a bad play changes the direction of the previously calm scene. It also includes my editor’s favorite metaphor in the book. (FYI, they’ve been discussing ‘All About Me’ collages, a magazine-picture project Sam has been doing with her pre-schoolers):

“Did you have Playboy?” said Pierce.

Krull sighed. “No, Zach, she didn’t get Playboy for the four-year-olds.”

“Because if I was going to make an ‘All About Me,’ collage, I’d need Playboy,” he said. Then, “Fucking Wells!” at the top of his lungs, without warning. Like some kind of testosterone bomb, detonating in the middle of our apartment.

Jake thudded to the floor and scurried out of the room.

“Jesus,” said Krull. “It was only ball one.”

In a book where a character winds up behaving in the ultimate unexpected way – committing horrible murders – Pierce’s overreaction contributes to the theme… and ultimately, to the plot.

And my editor really liked the testosterone bomb.

Many thanks to Alison for the input.

For excerpts from You Kill Me, click here.

Among the praise for the novel:

"Post-9/11 Manhattan is the ominous setting for Gaylin's deliciously chilling second thriller (after Hide Your Eyes), in which preschool teacher Samantha Leiffer is still recovering from her brush with a murderer a year earlier. Her live-in cop boyfriend, John Krull, has suddenly gone emotionally (and sometimes physically) AWOL, so after a mysterious visitor leaves Samantha a series of warning notes about her safety, she's forced to grapple alone with what they could mean, if anything at all. As if on cue, people around Samantha start to die, beginning with the woman who lived in Samantha's old apartment, gorily murdered. If the signs point where Samantha thinks they're pointing, maybe she'd rather be in the dark. Though the novel has some trappings of generic chick lit--a loudmouth mother, a gay best friend and kooky secondary characters--Gaylin casts them all in a fresh light. Sparing use of clever inner monologue paints Samantha as the hero we all hope we'd be."
--Publisher's Weekly