2008
A Novel
In Susan McCarty’s absorbing, nostalgic novel 2008, the lives of a group of estranged high school friends intertwine again fifteen years later.
The story begins in 1993, on the night teenage Stevie, her boyfriend Sam, and her best friend Jen have a threesome that changes their relationships forever. It then jumps ahead to 2008: Stevie is fired from her job in New York when her shady boss and ex-lover discovers her blog; she learns that Jen died in an apparent suicide. After reconnecting with Sam at the funeral, she moves back in with her mother in their small Iowa hometown. Sam, now married and an alcoholic realtor, struggles with the collapsing housing market; he is convinced that Jen was murdered and plans to find out what really happened.
The story takes a gripping route through Stevie and Sam’s early years, covering their strong feelings for Jen, their attempts to escape their small-town lives, and their work as adults to make sense of 2008’s instability. Both have their own struggles independent of Jen’s death, and the narrative shifts in important and unexpected ways that add depth, introducing growing uncertainty as Stevie and Sam each try to make sense of their trajectories.
2008 does an excellent job of evoking its setting—that narrow period of time when the subprime mortgage bubble was just starting to burst. Herein, Barack Obama is still a presidential candidate, and technology is a new world, marked by “poking” people on Facebook and cell phones that are not online. Still, the book is sparing with its period markers, having characters’ situations and choices reflect the era in subtle ways.
2008 is a layered novel in which teenage friendship leads to chain reactions that continue years into the future.
Reviewed by
Jeff Fleischer
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
