I was interested in reading The Hand That Feeds You after learning of its backstory: When author Katherine Russell Rich learned that the man she was in love with was a lying con artist, she set out to write a novel about the experience; to explore what would make an intelligent and confident woman fall for such a fraud. That novel was barely started, however, when Rich succumbed to breast cancer. Two of her friends – authors Amy Hempel and Jill Ciment – then stepped in and collaborated under the pseudonym A. J. Rich to write the book, and as a tribute to their lost friend, it's a fitting piece. As a novel in its own right – without taking into account the backstory – it's just okay.
Morgan Prager is a 30-year-old completing her master's thesis in forensic psychology – trying to alter the definition of a predator by identifying the common traits of victims – who makes a grisly discovery in her Williamsburg apartment at the beginning of the book: her fiance Bennett has been dismembered and the prime suspects are her dogs (a Great Pyrenees that Morgan raised from a pup and two recent pit bull fosters). As Morgan tries to contact Bennett's family (whom she's never met), it becomes clear that he isn't who he said he was, and Morgan puts herself at risk while she tracks down the truth. The plot of The Hand That Feeds You follows a fairly typical thriller path, with leads and twists and danger, and although I had a good idea of how the book would end, there were some surprises along the way.
True to its purpose, The Hand That Feeds You shows how an obviously intelligent woman can be duped by a sociopathic predator (and especially if she displays pathological altruism as Morgan defines it) and it includes some nicely overt tributes to Katherine Russell Rich as Morgan remembers her dead friend Kathy, “An adventurous, indomitable, and wise spirit had guided her through a life many would envy”. In broad strokes, this was a fine book, but in the details I found so many things jarring.
In her author bio, it says that Amy Hempel is a founding board member of two dog rescue organisations, and it becomes clear that advocating for pit bulls is one of her passions, with many opportunities taken in this book to proselytise [“For every 1 pit bull that bites, there are over 10.5 million that don't”, “They were the most misunderstood and misjudged breed, that they were, in a sense, like tattoos, like instant gangsta cred (even though most of them were mushes”), “I was disappointed that they were prejudiced because he's a pit bull. He never did anything wrong and still they avoided him.”] And while I totally respect an author using every opportunity to advocate for her pet passions, using the whole set-up of having a dismembered body and blood smeared pit bulls in order to demonstrate how terrible it is that people jump to conclusions about the breed...well, that's pretty manipulative. I didn't like the eventual conflation of a falsely accused person being held in jail with the experience of a dog in a shelter (and especially when this person peed on the floor because no one would let her out) and the following caused me to scratch my head:
Unlike accused humans, Cloud and George didn't have a right to a speedy trial, nor was there such a thing as bail for dogs. They languished behind bars while the courts took their time. To say they languished is not accurate. Every day, they deteriorated physically and spiritually in the filthy confines of the noisy and understaffed shelter.Why use the word “languish” if in the next sentence you write that that's not the right word? And then why in the next sentence would you describe the dogs' experience as the very definition of the word “languish”? (Yes, I was forced to look it up in case my mental definition was wrong; it wasn't.) Also jarring: random observations about the moon, and I found the following to be especially curious in a book with a theme of not prejudging:
Tonight, most of the downtown office buildings were dark, but not the new World Trade Center. It was lit up, and a new crescent moon – the symbol of Islam – was positioned such that it seemed to touch the tower.There was much sloppy writing – I understand that Morgan is an academic, but there was nothing organic about her periodically inserting random facts with “this statistician states” or “this researcher found” – and I was annoyed by the specificity of Morgan's movements: I bought a Godfather wrap – soppressata, provolone, roasted red peppers – at Bagelsmith on the corner. But again...I appreciate what Hempel and Ciment were trying to accomplish, and with the lying con man of the story having both his body and his motivations torn to bloody shreds, I'm sure they found this project to be both a satisfying retaliation and a proper sendoff for their departed friend. I'm certain I like The Hand That Feeds You better because I learned of the backstory before starting it, and that's why I'm including so much of that info here; do with it as you like.
