“What happens when the people you’ve always known turn out to be monsters, what do you do when everything you ever believed crumbles away?”

David Joy’s Those We Thought We Knew follows a young Black artist from Atlanta named Toya who returns to her home in the Appalachian Mountains in order to trace her history and unveil the systemic bigotry present even in the most unexpected people.

Through alternating perspectives throughout the novel, the reader gets to know, and ultimately trust, the inhabitants of Sylva, North Carolina. Some of the more significant characters include Sheriff John Coggins, the upstanding yet proud pillar of law enforcement and long-time friend of Toya’s grandfather; detective Leah Green, who appears later in the novel to solve one of its tragic crimes; and my personal favorite, Vess, Toya’s anxiously devoted grandmother. The reader slowly learns about the story’s events through the independent knowledge and experiences of each character. However, we additionally get to feel sympathetic toward or even betrayed by some of them in a way that mirrors how the characters feel about one another.

The novel’s Southern mountainous setting is brimful with Confederate monuments, corrupted government officials, and hatred-driven cults many would expect to accompany a small, rural community in the South. Whether the reader has been a part of these communities themselves, or identifies with Toya’s perspective on the community as an outsider, Joy allows everyone to be enveloped in the dynamics of this town. I got a clear mental image of each character while reading—their appearance, their voice, and their personality—as if I know them myself. Continue reading “David Joy, Those We Thought We Knew (2023)” →