‘Notes on an Execution’ is, in part, and often powerful, a novel about these women. But it is also true that Ansel remains the core of the novel and functions as the conceptual negative space of the story. He and his crimes remain the axis around which the story revolves. The sections of Lavender, Saffy, and Hazel are sequenced according to the timeline of his life, starting with his childhood and continuing through his young adulthood and eventual capture. In this way, their sections are structured around, even instrumentalized by, the demands of the serial killer’s biography.
And as much as the novel is eager to dismantle the serial killer mythos, in many ways the Ansel that emerges — especially in the sections centering on the various women — amplifies it. There are familiar biographical elements (child trauma, delusions of intellectual grandeur, sporadic impotence), and then there are his extraordinary persuasiveness.
Ansel is everywhere portrayed as someone with an almost ruthless sexual charisma. He is described by Hazel as “a human magnet.” Its presence provokes an extreme physical reaction in women. When she meets him, Hazel blushes ‘from the attention’, and when he reaches out to take hers, ‘Hazel picked up the muscles in her stomach – the whole body revolves around the core.” For Saffy, even the idea of Ansel’s message is physically arousing: “The thought spread through her stomach, then burst into her legs. Liquid hot, exciting.”
There’s something surprisingly uniform and a little reductive about this feminine response. Once they’re out of Ansel’s immediate presence, these characters come to life more. Especially the relationships between women – sisters, friends, colleagues – are beautifully drawn, detailed and specific. We see Lavender grappling with her trauma from a community of women she has sought refuge in, Hazel negotiating the boundaries of her bond with her sister, and Saffy managing complex relationships with friends and mentors.
And as in ‘Girl in Snow’, Kukafka evokes the disarming mist of sadness, its wild illogic, its transformative power. As Hazel grapples with a devastating loss, the novel offers a powerful reminder of how grief is often an expression of love. In Lavender’s horror at her son’s crimes, guilt, denial and regret complicate her and give a dimension to her fear.
“Notes on an Execution” is nuanced, ambitious and compelling. Perverted, part of the novel’s propulsive power comes from the conventions it doesn’t let go of. The temptation of the serial killer story is hard to shake, both for the reader and the author. We keep watching and we keep turning the pages. In our fascination we are all involved.
