INVISIBLE WOMAN

When news of another Hollywood rape scandal breaks, Joni Ackerman—a former filmmaker now married to Paul Lovett, a powerful TV executive—reaches out to encourage an old friend to expose her truth.

Joni has known for decades that the accused CEO was a sexual predator because he assaulted her friend Val Graham at a party almost 30 years ago. Val, at the time an aspiring actress, didn’t report the rape and eventually left Hollywood. Joni has always kept silent to honor Val’s wishes, but also because “she didn’t want [Paul] to love her less, which he would have if she’d told another man’s secrets.” Now, having recently moved to New York for Paul’s job, Joni is at loose ends: in her marriage, in her career, and, now that her younger daughter is at college, as a parent. And so she contacts Val—for solace, for solidarity, and perhaps to finally uncover another secret: the identity of the second man who was present when Val was assaulted, someone never identified. Part domestic thriller, part psychological mystery, this is a tight, well-paced novel, and it hangs on the complex and flawed character of Joni herself. Rediscovering Patricia Highsmith’s novels, Joni begins to lean into the darkness of her own soul, which is perhaps not surprising given the experiences that have led her there: giving up her film career to play second-fiddle to a powerful husband; keeping the secrets of monstrous men; finding herself in a marriage where she’s expected to smile and serve as the perfect hostess at her husband’s star-studded parties but not be a star herself. Caught in the nefarious web of the patriarchy at every turn, she finds in Highsmith a way to fight back and reclaim some of her own agency. There’s an unexpected twist that flirts dangerously with the hysterical-female trope, but ultimately, this surprising piece of Joni’s story is just that: one more piece.

Absolutely a novel of its time—and a novel of women's stories across time.