MAD HONEY: A Novel
by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan
Ballantine Books. 464 pages, $29.99
IF you’ve been following the buzz on this book, you may wonder how Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan—two very different kinds of authors—decided to team up on a novel. As the story goes, Boylan dreamed that she’d written a book with Picoult, and she tweeted about it. Picoult saw the tweet and said some version of “Why not?” This is an important fact to know when you pick up Mad Honey. There’s a larger reason for the presence and contribution of both authors, and it lies within the story.
In the novel, Olivia McAfee is a woman who grew up in New England, moved away when she married, and ran back after escaping from her abusive husband in the middle of the night. For now, her income derives mostly from a series of beehives that she inherited from her father, and the honey from her “livestock.” This thread is mostly peripheral to the story but for a reference later in this novel.
Olivia is the mother of eighteen-year-old Asher, a senior in high school who’s the captain of the hockey team and the dream of all the teenage girls in their small town. Asher is a moody boy, deliberate in his actions and kind to underdogs, but not an indiscriminate player or young ladies’ man. Instead of playing the field during his last year of school, he chooses a reticent girl who just moved to town with her mother. Lily Campanello is nineteen, and she and her mother have likewise escaped an abusive situation, which Lily is reluctant to discuss. Not even Maya, Lily and Asher’s mutual best friend, knows the awfulness that Lily has endured. Astute readers can see the storm a-comin’.
On this note, readers may become impatient because there’s so much story setup and so little development. This means pages of soap opera, of teenage angst, boy-meets-girl drama, and the kind of fussy mothering that you’ll find in many women’s novels. But things are about to change. Note that Picoult is known for his novels about heterosexual relationships. Boylan, who is transgender, adds realism to a story that twists this heterosexual relationship into something that will pleasantly surprise readers.
The reticence Asher and Lily both feel about discussing their past histories becomes a vast silence between them. He refuses to talk to her, then she returns the gesture. Lily’s mother doesn’t seem to notice that her daughter is suffering. Olivia knows that Asher is struggling to do right by the girl he says he loves. When he makes a very big, tone-deaf mistake in this effort, Lily storms off and won’t answer his texts or calls. Asher becomes frustrated and angry, unsure if Lily is still angry at him. He hears that she’s sick and wonders if he’s the cause. In his youth, he doesn’t know if he should stay away and give her space or go to her house to speak with her directly. He chooses the latter, which unleashes a series of events culminating in a kaboom ending that will satisfy readers of suspense, romance, and courtroom drama novels.
Terri Schlichenmeyer is a freelance writer based in Wisconsin.
