Reprieve: A Novel
"Like Whitehead’s The Intuitionist, Alyssa Cole’s When No One Is Watching or Zakiya Dalila Harris’ The Other Black Girl, Reprieve straddles genres in the best possible way. . . . Sure to spark conversation and debate at book clubs across the land." –LOS ANGELES TIMES
“An eventual American classic that is unrelenting in its beauty and incisive cultural critique.” – KIESE LAYMON
Recommended by New York Times • Los Angeles Times • NPR • Today • Esquire • O Quarterly • Boston Globe • Chicago Tribune • Harper’s Bazaar • Shondaland • Thrillist • The Millions • Crimereads • XTRA • Tor • Literary Hub • and more!
A chilling and blisteringly relevant literary novel of social horror centered around a brutal killing that takes place in a full-contact haunted escape room—a provocative exploration of capitalism, hate politics, racial fetishism, and our obsession with fear as entertainment.
On April 27, 1997, four contestants make it to the final cell of the Quigley House, a full-contact haunted escape room in Lincoln, Nebraska, made famous for its monstrosities, booby-traps, and ghoulishly costumed actors. If the group can endure these horrors without shouting the safe word, “reprieve,” they’ll win a substantial cash prize—a startling feat accomplished only by one other group in the house’s long history. But before they can complete the challenge, a man breaks into the cell and kills one of the contestants.
Those who were present on that fateful night lend their points of view: Kendra Brown, a teenager who’s been uprooted from her childhood home after the sudden loss of her father; Leonard Grandton, a desperate and impressionable hotel manager caught in a series of toxic entanglements; and Jaidee Charoensuk, a gay international student who came to the United States in a besotted search for his former English teacher. As each character’s journey unfurls and overlaps, deceit and misunderstandings fueled by obsession and prejudice are revealed, forcing all to reckon with the ways in which their beliefs and actions contributed to a horrifying catastrophe.
An astonishingly soulful exploration of complicity and masquerade, Reprieve combines the psychological tension of classic horror with searing social criticism to present an unsettling portrait of this tangled American life.
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Community Reviews
Mattson's dialogue is one of the truest - or perhaps better said, is matched and fits with his characters in a way that succinctly mimics the everyday life of readers - I've ever read.
Just as is represented in the book, people can't be defined by a binary label, this book can neither be defined by a genre. It will mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
Sometimes, I find myself disappointed with books about social issues, because they can be too heavy handed. It's hard to be invested in a story when so many of the main characters are deeply unlikeable and veer too close to being caricatures. Spending too much time with Leonard and Jaidee felt kind of plodding and infuriating and I would have liked a bit more subtlety, but overall I think it was effective. If you went on expecting slasher/horror you'd be very disappointed. If you went in expecting a poignant, introspective, and nuanced look at issues of race, class and gender, you'd also probably be kind of disappointed, but if you expect something in between you'll probably be happy.
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