"Pew" by Catherine Lacey

I really wanted to like Pew. There's plenty of appeal: small-town secrets, a dash of "The Lottery" horror, a nameless (identity-less) narrator. But Pew is one of those books that only works when there's some sort of payoff, when the time spent feels ultimately meaningful. It's harder to justify the experience when all the ambiguity ends in... gooey ambiguity.

Pew is told from the point of view of an unnamed narrator who is discovered sleeping on a church pew. Though the church members are discomfited by the narrator's lack of clear identity markers (boy or girl? Black or white? young or old?), they decide to take the person in. The church members' "generosity" is pushed, however, as the narrator--whom they name Pew--refuses to speak or divulge any personal information. In the midst of the community's frustrations at Pew and Pew's unwillingness--or inability--to perform an identity, is the upcoming Forgiveness Festival.

There are multiple potential themes running through Pew, none of which quite come together. First, there's the town's uneasiness with Pew's gender ambiguity. It would seem to be a commentary on transgender individuals, but Pew doesn't identify as a person at all. The town is judgmental, but their discomfort with a person who refuses to take any kind of identity seems a pretty human response.

Pew repeatedly insists that their body is just a vessel; that they are not an individual with a past and a future. I could see this being a statement on trauma or perhaps a criticism of our over-individualistic society, but it just makes Pew feel empty as a character.

Pew becomes acquainted with Nolan, a boy adopted by a town family from a war-torn African country. Nolan clearly hates his family, and his family's condescending magnanimity is awful and cringe-worthy, but the ultimate criticism--that small-town, Christian goodness toward the "underprivileged" is often just a new form of Colonialism---doesn't feel especially new.   

Then there's the way in which individuals are prone to confess to Pew. In the absence of an identity, other people can project whatever they like onto Pew. Pew becomes a canvas for others' fears and insecurities. I suppose there's irony that a person in whom everything is hidden becomes a medium by which others' finally feel free to reveal, but, again--to what end?

Then there's the Forgiveness Festival itself, a vaguely referenced and ominous-sounding community event that the entire book leads up to. Given the hints scattered throughout the novel, it's easy to imagine a town from "The Lottery" or Midsommar, but instead the final event seems, well, rather tame. People [spoiler] confess aloud their wrongdoings, all at once... and then have a picnic? There are hints or worse doings (murders by the leaders? I'll confess I didn't follow), but nothing is confirmed. Again, it seems like there's an important theme that's just out of reach. Suggestions that the Festival is used to cover up rape, for example; or that grace-giving "forgiveness" can easily be twisted into harmful "forgetting." All worthwhile to explore, but the end effect is that they're mentioned--and then also forgotten.

The book ends suddenly, and while it feels like an ambiguous ending should feel meaningful, instead, it feels cheap and empty--sort of like Pew