THE SPEED QUEEN! I don't know why, but for some reason before reading this I thought it was going to be about racing, like NASCAR or something. Thank god it wasn't. Instead it was about Speed, i.e. crystal meth!! YAY! In particular, it was about a woman on death row in Oklahoma, who was nicknamed the Speed Queen, telling her story about how she got there. *The format of the book is unique as it's written as if Stephen King bought the rights to her story so that he could write a book about her life, and she is telling her entire story to him. Personally wasn't into it. But I tend to shy away from any pop culture references being mentioned in books, and this has a lot of them, mainly Stephen King books but also others. So that's just a personal preference. I don't think I would like Ready Player One because of that, but tons of people love that book, so...*I liked the death row aspect of it though. She's literally like an hour away from being executed as she's dictating her story, so there would be times where she would pause her story to eat her last meal or call her mother one last time. *Another personal preference: I was not a fan of conversion to Christianity in the story, also resulting in her editing out the cursing in her story. Silly and annoying to me, but for certain people that will make them like it even more. Not for me though.*Seeing as I'm from Oklahoma, it was very interesting reading this and reading so many references to places I've been. It's not just set in Oklahoma but the exact area I live, and it felt very real to life. For a glimpse of Oklahoma, this is a good book to read. It was cool.Overall, this book was honestly very realistic and actually a little too close to home for me. I actually cried reading it just because it made me think of people in my life so much it was overwhelming. lol. So if a book makes me cry, I automatically have serious respect for it. Murder, drugs, sex, but no cursing. lol. Good book!
The Speed Queen is the story of a young woman (Marjorie) on death row for her participation in a killing spree, told as an epistle -- although instead of writing the letter, she's answering a series of questions into a recorder for Stephen King, who has bought the rights to her story.On the book cover, Sue Grafton claimed it was an "ingenious" conceit. I'm baffled as to why an epistle would be called ingenious, but maybe she was referring to something else. When my cousins and I mailed cassettes back and forth in the 1970s, we didn't think we were being particularly ingenious.Anyway, it's not an unpleasant read, but I think that pleasantness is actually part of the problem. There's very little tension possible from the story for two possible reasons: 1) Marjorie has had time on death row to process her experiences; or, 2) she is incapable of feeling either due to her personal emotional make-up or her drug addiction. Either way, I didn't feel like I was reading about anything nearly so troubling as torture, murder, and drug addiction would suggest, not to mention the loss associated with "twists" in the story. The Speed Queen is no "Dancer in the Dark" as I'm sure it's not meant to be. I doubt I'll remember much about it in a couple of weeks.O'Nan is definitely an author worth reading (e.g. Prayer for the Dying). I'm not sure The Speed Queen is really one of his best. Nonetheless, it's not awful either, by any means.Oh, one more thing I found annoying. I might as well use this soap-box. O'Nan (or the copy editors) has often written "could of" or "would of" instead of "could have" and "would have". Now, if that were someone writing, it might make sense to show us the mistake. However, since "have" and "of" are homonyms, having it appear in a supposed transcription of speech is just plain idiotic and I wish he/they hadn't done it.
What do You think about The Speed Queen (2001)?
Stewart O'Nan is one of my favorite authors because his main characters have layers of complexity and are an authentic mixture of good and bad and even if you don't entirely like the main character (Marjorie) in this particular book, you do find her interesting and desire to understand her.Marjorie can be funny, frightening, naive and pathetic as O'Nan weaves this page turning story.This story contains a surprising amount of nostalgia as the storyline takes you across Route 66 and weaves through small town Americana with corny, stereotypical sounding names of diners and fast food restaurants and then for good measure more nostalgia thrown in with chit chat about big, fast muscle cars of the late 60's era which stars a large yellow Plymouth Roadrunner that has an important supporting role to the main characters.This story has charm, creepiness, violence and black humor and leaves you wondering how one person can start out well enough in a modestly typical American family and end up with a life so badly wasted.
—Kathleen
This is Marjorie's story, as dictated to a tape recorder, on Death Row in an Oklahoma prison the night of execution. She's the most notorious thrill killer in America, but before she's put to death for the murder of 12 people, she wants to tell her side of the story and, in particular, she wants to answer the "lies" in friend/lover Natalie's best selling account of their crime spree. She's even found the perfect vehicle to guarantee that the world hears her story, she's chosen Stephen King to tell it. What follows is a wierd, frightening, disingenuous tale of sex and drugs and fast food and muscle cars and way too many Diet Pepsis, as Marjorie, her husband Lamont, their baby and their lover Natalie descend into a speed driven paranoid night of violence. Meanwhile, not content merely giving her version of events, she provides a running comparison of parts of her story and elements of King's novels and offers him advice on how to improve upon her story when he pens the intended roman a clef. The novel is a blistering, mesmerizing, horrifying read told in a mundane, dead-pan voice. Maybe that is why it is so blistering, mesmerizing and horrifying. O'Nan is great with mundane and dead-pan.... It is the story that Oliver Stone was trying to tell in Natural Born Killers; a nearly cinematic 90's noir set at the wicked intersection of Pop Culture and the Media Age. Most highly recommended.
—Carol
(re-read in February 2013)Marjorie may or may not have participated in a Starkweather-esque multi-state killing spree with her husband, lesbian lover, and her infant son in tow. Marjorie is on death row dictating to tape the answer to over 100 questions posed to her by Stephen King, who has bought the rights to her story. Marjorie is one of my favorite unreliable narrators ever written. She's funny, sexy, sad, scary as all hell, and so cleverly manipulative that you find new tricks of hers with each re-read. I can't recommend this book enough.
—Paul
