IN THE LONELY BACKWATER

A North Carolina teen navigates choppy waters when her cousin’s death rocks their small marina town.

Nieman’s novel starts off like a gritty noir, with first-person narrator Maggie Warshauer revealing some of what she knows about her cousin Charisse Swicegood and dropping early hints that she has something to hide. The violent events of the fated night leading up to Charisse’s death unfold as a capable detective pieces together the tragedy. As Maggie’s observations—informed by her fascination with Linnaeus and his classification of species—are carefully revealed, her inner thoughts and statements to others become tangled up, sometimes in less-than-revelatory ways. Truth and rumors surrounding the case are spliced with episodes of Maggie’s ongoing explorations, letters written by her alcoholic father, and snippets of town gossip. Along the way, readers discover more about Maggie’s troubled background and tensions with her “so-called mother,” who left the family. The sense of place is strongly developed, but the characters’ motives are not fleshed out enough to buoy the tension. Maggie’s confidence brims with a mature bravado but often clashes with her negative physical self-descriptions. Themes of sexual awakening are raised; they drip with phrasing that conflates desire, regret, confusion, and fantasy as Maggie wrestles with internalized shame. Maggie and Charisse are White; there is racial diversity in the supporting cast.

A contemplative narrator, a mild mystery.