JODI PICOULT and JENNIFER FINNEY BOYLAN Mad Honey. Reviewed by Sally Nimon
What did happen to Lily? Jodi Picoult’s collaboration with Jennifer Finney Boylan is much more than a murder mystery.
Mad Honey is the latest novel from Jodi Picoult, a collaboration with fellow writer Jennifer Finney Boylan. The term ‘mad honey’ refers to a variety of the sweet substance produced by bees in Nepal who feed on a particular species of rhododendron. Apiarist Olivia McAfee, the key figure in this tale, warns this variety should be avoided at all costs as its effects are so unpleasant it was used as a biological weapon during the Third Mithridatic War in 65 BCE:
The secret weapon of mad honey, of course, is that you expect it to be sweet, not deadly. You’re deliberately attracted to it. By the time it messes with your head, with your heart, it’s too late.
And this is precisely the situation that Olivia and her teenage son, Asher, find themselves in over two thousand years later, in contemporary New Hampshire, USA.
Olivia and Asher have come to the area to get away from an abusive ex-husband and father. Some time later they meet Lily, a new arrival at Asher’s school, along with her mother, Ava. The two families have much in common: Olivia and Ava are both single mothers fleeing circumstances of domestic violence; Asher is the child his mother hoped would be a girl, and Lily the daughter that was supposed to be a son. We know from the outset that this will be no normal teenage love story, for each chapter begins with reference to an event that will forever impact all of their lives – ‘the day of’, ‘the week before’, ‘five months after’. And it’s not long before we learn that event is Lily’s death.
It starts like any standard mystery. Asher is found inside Lily’s house covered in blood and cradling her body. The two of them are on the couch. He claims that when he arrived he found her unmoving at the bottom of the stairs. He says he must have taken her to the couch but doesn’t remember doing so. He had gone to visit because they had been fighting and he was hoping to get a resolution. Yet, despite his obvious distress, he fails to call for any assistance. It is Lily’s mother, arriving later, who finally alerts 911 and gets her daughter to hospital. But by then it is too late and Lily is declared dead. Because the circumstances are unclear, the police are obliged to investigate. As there is only really one obvious suspect, Asher is arrested and taken into custody. And so begins the attempt by Olivia, assisted by her defence lawyer brother, Jordan, to determine what really happened during that afternoon.
So far, so standard. But because this is a Jodi Picoult – even a Jodi Picoult written in collaboration with another author – the story you think you are reading is not the one that slowly reveals itself as the narrative progresses. As we – and Olivia – uncover more of the events of that day and the weeks leading up to it, it becomes increasingly clear that Asher and Lily’s relationship was not quite what it had appeared on the surface.
‘Just be yourself, they tell you,’ Lily muses to herself, five weeks before. ‘As if just being yourself is so easy. As if, for so many people, it isn’t the very thing that most puts you at risk in this cruel and heartless world.’
Lily is around 17 years old when she makes that statement. Drama such as this is not unknown in that age group, as any reality TV show will demonstrate. But Lily, we discover, is harbouring a secret that sets her well apart from any of her peers. Without giving too much away, those words turn out to be more literally true for her and her particular circumstances than mere overblown teenage sentiment. And then there is Asher. The son Olivia has raised and nurtured, the boy she swears she knew and understood, is displaying behaviours that are chillingly familiar to someone who fled an abusive ex-husband so many years ago. And her strategy of isolating him from his father’s malevolent influence is revealed to have been in vain when she discovers he has been in regular contact on his own initiative and behind her back.
Olivia seeks solace in her bees. In them she sees hope for the kind of world that humans could have built, away from murders and hate and unprovoked violence. This is a community where individuals protect and nurture each other, and direct their lives towards the good of the hive: ‘It’s about persuasion, consensus. Not everything is solved with violence.’
But that is not how the US justice system interprets the world. As the case unfolds, it becomes clear how frighteningly easy it is to persuade a jury that violence is the logical reaction to difference, even as the alleged perpetrator is being condemned for having had that reaction. The case, it turns out, is not about truth, but about reasonable doubt, even if that doubt is in fact, entirely unreasonable:
Here’s how the legal system works, Jordan explains. ‘If you don’t tell me what happened, but I manage to convince the jury that the reason you did not murder Lily is because you were actually in Tokyo competing in the Olympics – then you’re free. It doesn’t matter if you were not competing in the Olympics … All I have to do is create reasonable doubt for the jury … As long as you have never told me otherwise, I can spin any story I want in court.’
We do ultimately discover the truth of what happened to Lily that sad afternoon. However, the ending leaves something of a sour taste given the issues it raises about the justice system and human behaviour. Perhaps this is the influence of Boylan in the writing, or perhaps it is simply the inevitable outcome of this type of subject matter, given the way the world currently stands. This ultimately makes it somewhat unsatisfying as a piece of fiction, though probably a better representation of reality than any happier alternative. And it’s not as if calling it Mad Honey didn’t warn us.
Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan Mad Honey Allen & Unwin 2022 PB 464pp $32.99
Sally Nimon once graduated from university with an Honours degree majoring in English literature and has hung around higher education ever since. She is also an avid reader and keen devourer of stories, whatever the genre.
You can buy Mad Honey from Abbey’s at a 10% discount by quoting the promotion code NEWTOWNREVIEW or you can buy it from Booktopia.
You can also check if it is available from Newtown Library.
If you’d like to help keep the Newtown Review of Books a free and independent site for book reviews, please consider making a donation. Your support is greatly appreciated.
