Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka was pitched to me as a fictional story about the final hours of a death row serial killer's life before his execution, during which his life story is narrated by all the women in his life -- from his mother and ex-wife to the female detective who ultimately caught him. As someone who has watched every episode of Criminal Minds, and could quote every word uttered with near perfect intonation, I was instantly hooked on this premise. I was particularly fascinated by the ... oddly feminist nuance: that by letting women tell the story of a man, Kukafka subverts the usual media habit of telling women's stories solely through the eyes of men.
Upon reading it, however, I realize that the reality is much more complex.
For starters, Danya ruthelessly attacks America's, society's, and (admittedly) my own fascination with serial killers and violence. From Ted Bundy conspiracy theories to fictional television crime shows (Criminal Minds, CSI, Bones, etc.), it seems that the more horrific the crime, the more enthralled the larger world is with the culprit's activity. And, in an atmosphere where individuals would sell their souls for quick fame (infamous or not), the promise of eternal glory should not be the consequence of violent crimes.
The author notes that the killer's name is always remembered, his past dissected by psychologists and newscasters alike, while the victims' entire lives are reduced to (at best) a number on a screen. Kukafka tries, she really does; she tries so hard to make this empowering for the story's women. She writes their lives with nuance and empathy, keenly observant and beautifully profound. She weaves their lives together, simultaneously binding them loosely and irrevocably. She tries to give them autonomy.
She fails.
Irony doesn't let her, because after all, how can you empower women by telling the story of a man who killed three of them? How can you magnify the importance of these women's truths, when the only reason the omniscient narrator is peeking inside their brains is to gain insight on a man they knew for a few months of their long lives?
And so, Kukafka subverts her own subverted trope, begging America to question what morals they're teaching their children by encouraging obsessions with people whose most overwhelming personality trait is that they hurt others. She leaves this issue unresolved, because she's not in the business of preaching moralities, but writing about them.
If nothing else, it's food for thought.
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