Dear Hanna: A Novel
Zoje Stage takes us into the disordered mind of her conscience-free protagonist, and it’s not a pretty sight—though 24-year-old Hanna is herself very pretty, as we’re frequently reminded. She just doesn’t care about anyone but herself and, with her at-boarding-school brother as a co-conspirator, is willing to commit heinous murders just to safeguard her comfortable position.
It seems that when Hanna was just seven, she repeatedly attempted to murder her own un-loving mother, but was inept at the task. Now after being sent away for a while she’s on the street and in the workforce (as a blood-drawing phlebotomist). Whether she gives you a little pinch or a big pain in the arm depends on her take on your character. It’s the perfect job for her. This is the reader’s first hint that Hanna is, well, a little off.
But then a handsome, fit real-estate agent, Jacob, brings his 12-year-old daughter, Joelle, in for her first blood draw. And he’s not wearing a wedding ring. The pair starts by running together, and then sharing their art—she draws creepy images, he takes enigmatic photographs. And soon Hanna has snared her man and is living with him and Joelle. All is well for a while, because Joelle does what she’s told. But then, unfortunately, she grows up, and—this is revealed early—gets pregnant at 16. Being a grandma is not at all in Hanna’s plans, but her efforts to get the child “taken care of” come to naught. What’s a young psychopath to do?
Dear Hanna is a sequel to Stage’s Baby Teeth (which covers the murderous seven-year-old), but you don’t have to have read the earlier volume to engage with this one. It’s a guess, but another entry in the series could be forthcoming.
The new book is partly epistolary, because while Hanna carefully maintains a sweet demeanor for her family, she’s secretly carrying on a lengthy correspondence with her loving and supportive brother, aka Goose. The latter is unnervingly worldly and articulate for a teenager, and almost as bent as his sister.
Joelle’s pretty vacant intended is a slack-jawed horror show, and his parents are pugnacious and gun-toting, not at all suitable for Hanna’s in-laws. Might murder clean up the situation? Jacob is blissfully ignorant about his wife’s extra-curricular activities, until he isn’t.
The book has a shock ending, but some readers are going to expect it. No matter, Dear Hanna is a good read, and the winsome phlebotomist sufficiently engaging to keep the pages turning. Life, she says, is what you can get away with.