I’m glad this was short.

This story is no doubt meant to be mind bending and mesmeric, but in the end it’s mostly jus irritating. This isn’t a breed of unreliable narrator that I enjoy because it feels misleading and unsatisfying in the end.

The plot and pacing intrigues at first. It’s only at the end when you realize what happened that you feel, quite frankly, kind of ripped off by the experience.

There are no likable characters or charming details to win back a few points for the experience.

I can’t imagine how calling this a literary mystery was justified. It sets up as a mystery, but ultimately it’s a cheap, bait-and-switch thriller, and while the writing is excellent in some ways (atmosphere, tone), that’s not especially rewarding when the entire reader experience feels utterly pointless and the plot feels gimmicky.

In the Bay Area of sunny San Francisco, what starts as an investigation into the death of the narrator's father soon turns into a fever dream that rings with surrealism, hilarity, and mystifying sequences. Losing his father to suspicious circumstances has compelled N, a university employee, to carry out an independent exploration of what happened. By discovering a briefcase and revisiting conversations, this unreliable narrator meshes reality with haziness and the line between reality and trance blurs. Impossible to sum up without potential spoilers, this literary fiction fairs well through the passive, disinterested voice and the anti-social persona that is the sole source of viewpoint for readers. Certainly an absolute hit or miss, Scapegoat is a psychologically driven mystery that atmospherically plays out scenes completely dependant on eccentricity, disingenuity, and non-linearity.

N is employed by a California university. He is investigating his father’s death. We do not know, and do not learn from this book: whether either of those statements is true, N’s name, his job, how is father died, why N feels the death needs investigation, whether anything N says is true, whether there are 1, 2 or 3 women in this book and what may or may not have happened to any of them. The list goes on. I assume this sort of obfuscation in a book is intended to be modern and clever, but I just found it annoying. I was really glad that this book is short. I doubt that I would read anything else by this author. I received a free copy of this audiobook from the publisher. 2.5 stars

This is one of the strangest novels I have read in recent memory but I loved every moment of it. This is a fun take on unreliable narrators, examining a middle-aged, generally unlikeable man as he investigates his father's death while working at a university. The mounting tension is built expertly, and ends up being a great dissection of loneliness, grief, and childhood trauma. I need to reread it to fully appreciate the nuance, and I am eager to do so. Check this out if you like Ottessa Moshfegh, particularly Death in Her Hands.

I didn't really find this book that enjoyable. Mostly, it was pretty boring. I couldn't connect to the story or the characters. I'd read another book by the author though. This one just wasn't for me.

2/5 Stars

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on March 2, 2021

The Scapegoat is proudly promoted as a postmodern novel. “Postmodern” is a red flag that often warns “this novel won’t make much sense.” The narrator, who views himself as a “glorified secretary” employed by Stanford’s medical school, decides to investigate the death of his father, who taught there as a professor. A school official is aware that the narrator’s father has “moved on” from Stanford but seems unaware of his death. Perhaps the narrator is confused about his father’s death. That would not be surprising, as the narrator is in a constant state of confusion, which necessarily leaves the reader confused.

The narrator describes his dreams, then sees people he recognizes from the dreams, people who disappear when he looks again. He sometimes mistakes one person for another — unless the person has transformed from one to the other. A key character who is about to meet an unfortunate fate seems to be a guest lecturer and then a graduate student and then the narrator’s mother, all within minutes. Sometimes characters have conversations with the narrator despite his failure to speak a word (or to remember that he has spoken), answering questions he didn’t ask (or doesn’t recall asking).

The narrator is doing his best to ignore people but sometimes recognizes them, almost as if he does so against his will. The narrator’s father was apparently absent quite often during the narrator’s childhood, or at least that’s what the narrator recalls. The narrator evidently has unhappy feelings about the mother who raised him. Perhaps this accounts for the narrator’s isolation, his determined attempt to avoid all social contact despite the characters who keep intruding on his solitude.

The narrator “herds” himself “from one confusion to the next” in a story that attaches great importance to a hotel room, a briefcase, and a paperweight shaped like a whale. The guest lecturer keeps popping into his life, apparently holding but concealing the key to some of the novel’s mysteries. What are the circumstances of his father’s death, assuming his father is dead? Why did his father check into a hotel using a fake name? Or is Shriver actually his name?

The hotel seems to have been built on the site of a California mission where a genocidal event occurred — perhaps it is now a tourist attraction for that reason — but how does the narrator’s father connect to the hotel that he apparently played some role in opening? What was his father doing in the hotel? Did the briefcase that the narrator found in the guest lecturer’s hotel room belong to his father? Is a briefcase that he later retrieves from the hotel the same briefcase, given that it is no longer covered in or stained by blood? Don’t expect any of these questions to be answered. The few answers that suggest themselves are not necessarily reliable.

As I understand it, the idea of postmodern literature is the recognition that meaning is subjective, that a story can have many meanings, or whatever meaning you want to ascribe to it. That seems true of all art, but postmodern writers often manufacture ambiguous, contradictory, or impossible events and then challenge the reader to interpret them. But why should I? a reader might ask. Perhaps the question is a sign that the reader is too lazy to engage in interpretive thought, or perhaps the reader thinks that the author is being lazy by stringing together a bunch of nonsense and saying, “You figure it out.” Both viewpoints are valid — in fact, in the postmodern world, everything is valid.

I am not a big fan of postmodern fiction, so perhaps I am one of those lazy readers who thinks the author should take responsibility for telling an intelligible story, perhaps leaving room for the reader to interpret ambiguities or symbols or to imagine what happens after the final chapter without sacrificing the coherence of traditional storytelling. There’s nothing wrong with making a reader think, but if I wanted to invent my own story, I’d be writing novels, not reading them. And if the story’s events are just a fiction within a fiction, are the events worthy of attention? If there’s no difference between a story and a dream, shouldn’t the story, like a dream, be quickly forgotten?

If I were to interpret The Scapegoat, I might guess that the narrator has a brain tumor, which would explain his apparent tendency to faint or black out or misremember or misperceive. But that interpretation might add a level of rationality to a novel that is intended to operate under rules that don’t exist in the rational world.

I have enjoyed some postmodern novels simply because they are whacky and playful, or because they accomplish the postmodernist goal of making me see the world in a different way. I was intrigued by The Scapegoat — the novel held my interest — but, promotional promises notwithstanding, I wasn't sufficiently "mesmerized" to spend significant time trying to make sense of it. The narrator tells us several times that nothing in his world makes sense. I agree, making it a world that I wouldn’t want to visit again, interesting though it might be.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

THE SCAPEGOAT
Sara Davis
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN-13: 978-0-374-18145-1
Hardcover
Literary
Mystery

THE SCAPEGOAT is a surefooted debut novel by Sara Davis with well-established bonafides as an instructor in creative writing. She has chosen to introduce herself to the reading public with a haunting and challenging work that presents a new aspect of the “unreliable narrator” theme while propelling the reader through a series of mystifying vignettes, all without sacrificing the literary quality of the story. It is a tale that is not soon forgotten.

N. is the first-person, past-tense narrator of THE SCAPEGOAT. Whatever his other faults, he is from the first page not entirely lacking insight, however warped his view may be. N., as we come to learn, was in the employ of the medical school of a San Francisco Bay-area university with an affiliated hospital. It takes a bit of time for N. to entirely explain his function there, or how he came to be where he was at that particular stage of his life. What we do learn is that N.’s father died under circumstances that N. felt were suspicious. N. felt compelled to investigate what occurred on his own. Given that N. and his father were estranged, N. began his investigation being somewhat backfooted. He did uncover a slim clue in the form of a cryptic note located in the pocket of his father’s abandoned coat. The note was written on stationery from a local hotel in the area. It so happened that N., shortly after finding the note, was given the opportunity to visit the hotel as the indirect result of being invited to a faculty dinner in honor of a visiting lecturer. Such an invitation was unusual, given that N. was hardly a social animal and had established himself as being aloof and enigmatic. The dinner results in an introduction that in turn led to access to a mysterious object which appears in various forms through N.’s narrative and which N. concluded had something to do with his father’s death. A briefcase which N. was certain also belonged to his father also disappears and reappears as N. relates what has occurred. There are in the meanwhile a series of past-tense vignettes along the way which reveal N.’s past and present in fits and starts, including his relationship, if it can be called that, with Kirstie, a colleague who he keeps running into and who perhaps had some interest in him but that for the most part, he appeared to be either unaware or uninterested. The truth of what has occurred, to the extent that it can be determined, is gradually revealed in a surprising and shocking denouement before the story’s abrupt end.

THE SCAPEGOAT is not a long novel --- just a bit over two hundred pages --- but is a deep and disturbing one. Davis’s prose is not necessarily economical but there is no wasted space. That said, the substance of THE SCAPEGOAT and its eccentric protagonist put me in the mind of a collaborative effort between Edgar Allan Poe and Doris Lessing. I am looking forward to more, much more, from Davis in the future. Recommended.

Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
© Copyright 2021, The Book Report, Inc. All rights reserved.

I’m judging a 2021 fiction contest. It’d be generous to call what I’m doing upon my first cursory glance—reading. I also don’t take this task lightly. As a fellow writer and lover of words and books, I took this position—in hopes of being a good literary citizen. My heart aches for all the writers who have a debut at this time. What I can share now is the thing that held my attention and got this book from the perspective pile into the read further pile.

“I would recognize that bridge if it were coming down a dark alley with its collar turned up against the cold; it had featured in more of my previous dreams than I could count, though never, it was true, in conjunction with my father.”
What an interesting way to phrase this… there is something spooky and quirky and alert and alluring about this prose. I’m reminded of Otessa Moshfegh…

"The Scapegoat" tells of a man who is a loner who works at a university, but we never find out what he does there. He is estranged from his father, who appears in various flashbacks. His father has just died, so the man goes to the open house where his father lived. The author gives us an idea of his life at the university and his home life. The book did not engage me and I didn't follow the different scenes as to what was real and what was imagined.
Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sara Davis gives us a valiant Murakami impression with her debut novel The Scapegoat, complete with our bachelor narrator making spaghetti and brushing his teeth before bed (he also, predictably, listens to classical music).

Luckily I love The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle so this particular brand of Murakami rip-off pulled me in, and it wasn’t long before we were off on a surreal noir tale, visiting a mysterious hotel (check), blurring the lines of dreams and real life (check), and bending the limits of time and matter (check) as the narrator investigates the death of his father. As the narrator becomes less reliable - as does the line between reality and dream/hallucination - the reader is required to mentally hold on very tight or risk, alongside the narrator, losing the thread.

A quick and engrossing read with a wild ending, I’d recommend The Scapegoat for folks who like Murakami, especially those who enjoyed The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Dance, Dance, Dance, or A Wild Sheep Chase. Thank you to FSG and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this one and provide my honest opinion in this review.

I finished this book because it was so short, but I have to say I just do not like literary mysteries. This was way too short and I just did not care enough about this story line.

Know in advance that this might seem a tad disjointed but keep reading to see how Davis pulls things together. N, our completely unreliable narrator, is a wastrel loner and fan of Wallender who is investigating the death of his father. He's led to a hotel which is almost a character; it's built on the site of a mission and someone apparently sent a sort of threat to his father, who was involved with it. I'm not sure how to describe this- there are dreams and then there's the issue of what's real and what's not, which is a struggle not only for N but for the reader. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

This odd and surreal novel was a bit hard to follow. I couldn’t quite connect with the narrator and, ultimately, did not finish this one.

I’m not sure what to make of this one! The Scapegoat by Sara Davis is a fast-paced, short, surreal mystery with an unreliable narrator. It is compulsively readable with short chapters, so I got through this one quickly. The narrator is investigating his father’s death, which keeps leading him to a strange hotel with a dark history and the University hospital where he works and his father previously worked. The narrator keeps finding clues which propel him back to the mysterious hotel again and again. Things keep changing and the narrator loses time, so it’s hard to know what’s really going on. It reminded me a little of The Night Film by Marisha Pessl. The story was very unsettling and strange, but very interesting.

Thank you Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and NetGalley for providing this ARC.

ok, this fucked me up. i have been fucked the fuck up. i've never thought so hard about a book after finishing it. i, as i always do, read this right before going to bed and it plagued my dreams. over and over again i asked myself, what...really...happened...? where was the 'beginning'? who's investigation is this? who is being investigated? who is the real victim?? what...?? happened...???? i've never read a mystery story quite like this, and i've never had one affect me quite like this. i wish i could tell you a brief overview of the novel but frankly, i'm not even sure myself. davis's storytelling, or the story's "siuzhet" (shoutout to my russian lit class), is absolutely phenomenal and engaging, cyclical and hazy, and very very meta.

from the beginning, we understand that the narrator is not the most reliable, but as the story progresses, we are pulled more and more into the instability and unreliablity of the narrator. we are sucked into his reality that may or may not be reality, and his dreams that may or may not be dreams. by the end, we are not sure at all what really happened, what was delusion, who did what to who and when. so delightfully confusing. there are meta storylines WITHIN the meta storyline itself, with the subplot of N's mystery novel, and the academics set on exposing california's destructive and exploitative history. there is a perfect amount of dread and unease, the perfect amount of gloom in the sunny san franscico setting. this story really reminded me of Dance Dance Dance by murakami, with the passive and slightly unreliable narrator, the haunted hotels, the jumbling of dreams and reality, the underlying atmosphere of trepidation and disquiet. except the narrator in the scapegoat is far less reliable and far more dangerous, and creates far more unease in the readers. murakami on lsd.

i would like to request from the author a linear timeline of the events as they happened in present time because. because this shit got me fucked up. i will be thinking about this book for a long time to come.

Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for this early ebook. This is a twisty, surreal mystery that keeps changing with each chapter. Narrated by a somewhat unreliable lead character who has a menial job at a college in California that was given to him by his father, who used to be one of the deans there. N, as the narrator is identified as, is now trying to figure out how his father has died and starts trying to put together a group of very, seemingly, non related clues. But are they clues? N seems to think that everyone and everything he meets is leading him one step closer to the truth, but that truth seems to shift from hour to hour, as he haunts a local hotel that’s very place of construction is a crime to some locals, as he reads his Scandinavian mystery novel and as he gets drawn deeper into his dreams. It’s a fun and potent book.