I tried so hard, but I just couldn't get into it. The characters felt flat and that just ruined the book for me. I didn't write a public review because I do not want to discourage others from reading.

I am sorry for the inconvenience but I don’t have the time to read this anymore and have lost interest in the concept. I believe that it would benefit your book more if I did not skim your book and write a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for the inconvenience.

A truly outstanding piece of work that combines literary and crime fiction. I've read most of Joy's novels, and I really believe he's getting better and better as he writes more. The characters, the writing, the setting - everything in this novel was superb, not even to mention the care and frank honesty he uses to touch on racial issues in western North Carolina, and how much of a snake's nest it all is. This is the heart of the book - and Joy isn't afraid to go there with his words, covering every side of the issue - even the ugly. He pulls it off well through Toya, Vess Ernie, Leah and Sheriff Coggins' stories - and leaves the reader with a lot to reflect on, both with the story and how it reflects with their own life.

Phenomenal book from an amazing southern writer. Literary thriller fiction at its finest that deals with big issues of race and violence. Could not put the book down!

As a native North Carolinian, I connected with this story about generational racism and how the actions of the past impact the present.

I would argue this is the most poignant Joy novel to date. Using very real issues we are facing in the world today, Joy makes the uncomfortable but necessary decision to include multiple voices in these issues. The neighbor that you found out voted for Trump, the co-worker that is pro-life, your best friend's husband who owns multiple guns - Joy gives a voice to these characters and he does it very well. He doesn't demonize them, but humanizes them while still making incredibly good points about what is right and wrong. While this still had the typical David Joy feel, it was different in a refreshing way from some of Joy's other novels and I won't be surprised if this is my favorite novel from this year. I'd suggest a necessary read for all - to not only see that there exist people who disagree with you, but to try and get a sense of how and what they feel rather than dismiss them outright. We don't need to agree but we need to make an attempt to understand each other.

This book took me a long time to get through—not because it was flawed in any way, but because it was so raw and relevant I kept having to put it down and think about it for a while. In Those We Thought We Knew, David Joy plots the racial tensions in a small town. The long-simmering history of conflict is fanned into flames by a series of events, including a hate crime and a young Black artist’s protests over Confederate monuments. Joy is an excellent prose stylist and this novel was gripping, timely, and devastating. Highly recommend, but be prepared to feel a lot of things: anger, grief, and perhaps…even hope?


Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for an early copy of this book.

very relavant in todays society. racial tensions over past mistakes and secrets in communities. David Joy writes a great novel, always five star for me, but just didnt care much for this subject matter. still a very well and thought out novel.

This is my first David Joy novel and I loved it. The story opens with Toya protesting the digging up of a graveyard. She then turns her sights on a Confederate statue in town. As an African American young woman, she tries to shed light on what such a statue represents. But the NC townsfolk don’t want to be introspective; they want things to stay the same. Before long, tensions in the town rise, leading to multiple incidents, including a murder.
At its heart, this is a mystery, but it brings about deeper conversation that is timely today. At times, it’s uncomfortable to read, yet well done.
I highly recommend it. Thank you to #PenguinGroup #Putnam for this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I don't usually go for mystery novels, but this one really caught my eye and I'm really glad that I read it. I really like a family story and the base of Those We Thought We Knew is a family story at its core. Excellent, I couldn't wait to keep reading.

4+ stars, rounded up
“No one wanted to talk about any of it. There was comfortability in the silence.”

I often dismiss publisher’s blurbs as hype, but this one rings true. “After two horrific crimes split the county apart, every soul must wrestle with deep and unspoken secrets that stretch back for generations. Those We Thought We Knew is an urgent unraveling of the dark underbelly of a community. Richly drawn and bracingly honest, it asks 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?”

A murder - (or two), a Southern tale of racism, powerful writing and fully developed characters make David Joy’s book, Those We Thought We Knew a pleasure to read. Emotional scenes with an occasional bit of humor brighten the storytelling. “It had done got cold as a bald-assed rat.”

The book appeals to the senses, immersing the reader in the North Carolina setting. “She missed the mountains and her porch and the chickens. She missed the stars and the dew on the grass. She missed the way the dirt felt hot on the soles of her feet those sun-stroked afternoons when the tomato vines wilted as if they would not survive the night.”

Good pacing and alternating story lines between main characters create suspense. “She heard them mumble under their breath thoughts they wouldn’t share aloud. The world was surely split in two, but discerning who stood on what side was not black and white. It was gray, and gray was the scarier color because so often you couldn’t pin it down…it was the ones we thought we knew, those were the ones who broke our hearts.”

David Joy knows how to write – full-range emotions, moral dilemmas, fascinating characters, setting a ‘I feel like I’m there’ North Carolina scene, outstanding pacing, and even some major surprises. Highly recommended!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Those We Thought We Knew is a valuable book and is certainly worth the read. I suppose I wasn't all that surprised by who the killer was in the end, however. Yet the narrative did keep me engaged enough that I had to finish the novel to its conclusion to know for sure what happened, to confirm my theories. I do believe that some readers may be shocked by the events shared in this book, and those are the readers who probably need to read this book the most. But will they? is the question... I hope so. I also think this book is an honest attempt to have important conversations about race and place and history that some people simply aren't having, and I sincerely appreciate that. However, there were a lot of sections of dialogue that seemed extraneous and unnecessary for each character's development and their relationships with one another, as well as for the overall development of the plot. And there was a lot more description of clothes and scenery than necessary (perhaps this is simply a personal preference of mine?-- please keep that in mind, readers.), which sometimes bogged down the overall flow of the plot, I am sorry to say. I would recommend this book to those who are hesitant to talk about race and place and history but want to, they just don't know where to start.

- thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc to review!

- a strong thriller based on uncovering the dark secrets of a small town, and the consequences of the past. i enjoyed Joy's storytelling, but felt myself out of the story at a few points. however, with my inattentiveness being the only issues, i still found myself enjoying this deep thriller, one that is rooted in history, history that some people in power don't want uncovered.

This novel was well written and the plot interesting, but it was full of speeches and moments meant to teach us Very Important Lessons. They were lessons I agreed with, but it still felt very heavy handed. I did love the last chapter, though.

"In this line of work [police], a man saw all sorts of things, and eventually he came to believe he’d seen it all. But if he’d been at it as long as Coggins, he’d come to know that there was no border, no grand finale, no ending or limit to the wicked of this world. There was always a darker darkness still."
▪️David Joy, Those We Thought We Knew, 5⭐

Thank you again @putnambooks for a finished copy to read and review. I also grabbed the audiobook to listen to because it's Macleod Andrews again, and he's so ridiculously perfect for Joy's stories.
Published 8/1/23. For fans of:
▪️Literary fiction
▪️Life in the South/Appalachia
▪️Multi POV
▪️Procedural murder thriller
▪️Racism, corruption

Like all of Joy's books, his newest release is a heart wrenching gut punch. I found TWTWK especially haunting as he steered his focus from the opioid/drug crisis of his other books, to a violent and angry narrative exploring the racial divide, American history and patriotism, and how much we hate to be made uncomfortable.

He set out to write from and for a white audience, that we have to lead and participate in uncomfortable conversations, not solely rely on BIPOC voices to do the work for us and hold our hands. Joy did an incredible job creating characters representing a handful of the typical arguments we make when confronted with racism and that forces the reader to confront their own thoughts.

The final reveal is chilling. The ending is crafted in such a way that the loose ends continue to discomfort and challenge, reminding us that this is a reality still at work. Reading this was like a fiction story bringing to life what I read in Layla Saad's Me and White Supremacy.

Toya is finishing her MFA and spending the summer with her grandmother in a small North Carolina mountain town. She’s disturbed by several things she learns and expresses her views through two outdoor artistic expressions, described as “art as an instrument of social change.” Her work is not well received and sets off a chain of events that has deadly consequences.
Those We Thought We Knew is beautifully written with fully developed characters, including the town itself. I felt transported with the descriptions and challenged by some of the discussion. The story starts slowly as groundwork is laid and key characters are introduced. The last third or so of the book is very compulsive as all the threads come together. While I wasn’t totally happy with some of the reveals at the end, it was overall a solid 4 star book for me.
Thanks to Netgalley and Putnam Books for the opportunity to read Those We Thought We Knew in exchange for an honest review.

Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons on August 1, 2023

Detective Leah Green works for a small Sheriff’s Office in a mountain community. She’s investigating the murder of Toya Gardner. Toya was a black civil rights activist. She returned to her home to protest a statue honoring a Confederate officer. Green believes Toya’s murder is related to the beating of a sheriff’s deputy who was unofficially investigating the Klan.

Sheriff John Coggins is focused on the beating of his deputy and wants Green to handle Toya’s murder on her own. He says he views the beating and the murder as unrelated crimes. In truth, when Toya’s father was still alive, he was Coggins’ best friend. Coggins quarreled with Toya about her activism before she died and, now that she’s been murdered, he seems to be troubled by his emotions. Toya all but calls him a racist. Coggins doesn't believe her father saw him that way, although they never had a meaningful discussion about race. Staying sober has been a challenge during Coggins' forty years as Sheriff. After Toya’s death, it’s a challenge he’s losing.

Ernie Allison is the deputy who takes a beating. He arrested William Dean Cawthorne for public drunkenness. By the time Ernie arrived, Cawthorne had passed out in his car. Ernie searched the car and found a Klan robe. He also found a notebook that appeared to list Klan members. Some are in politics, some in law enforcement. Ernie didn’t seize the notebook, but when he went back to take another look at it, the notebook was gone. His awareness of the names in the notebook might explain why he was left for dead under a giant illuminated cross.

Figuring out who attacked Ernie isn’t difficult after Ernie regains consciousness and, despite his limited memory, provides a few clues. Cawthorne is the obvious suspect for Toya’s murder but crime fiction fans know that the obvious suspect rarely proves to be the killer. Other suspects include a college kid, an eccentric man who saw a snake in his house and won’t set foot inside it at night, a gun dealer who trades in unlawful firearms, and a “grumpy old cuss.” None of those suspects seem particularly promising, but who knows?

Much of the novel addresses the complexity of race relations. White characters who are not overtly racist nevertheless make familiar arguments about how Confederate statues reflect heritage. They claim (usually without actual knowledge) that their ancestors owned no slaves. They don’t feel responsible for the lingering impact of slavery and don’t recognize the racist symbolism that is inherent in Confederate memorials. They complain that activists “stir things up” and deny that they personally benefitted from slavery.

Toya and some other characters argue that many white people in modern America enjoy a privilege that has been denied to many black people, a privilege that represents the vestiges of slavery. They argue that their voices are not heard and that whites who defend Confederate memorials on the ground of tradition deliberately ignore the intent to perpetuate black subjugation that drove southern states to insurrection.

It’s heartening when a white character explains how he transcended the white supremacist atmosphere in which he was raised. He has learned that being proud of your heritage doesn’t mean embracing everything the heritage entails. The character argues that most of his peers never opened a book after they dropped out of school. They base their knowledge of history on an uncritical acceptance of whatever their fathers told them.

Characters on both sides of the debate feel that the other side isn’t listening, but the reality is that black people have had no choice but to listen to white perspectives since the Civil War ended. It is the “traditionalists” who have closed their minds to the truth about the tradition they defend. That some white people are awakening to the impact of racism on American society has caused frantic condemnations of by the likes of Fon DeSantis about people who are "woke,” as if listening to people with an open mind and learning from them is a bad thing. (I should make clear that this paragraph represents my editorializing. The novel doesn't mention DeSantis or even the word "woke.")

Notwithstanding the importance to society of conversations like those imagined in the novel, long lectures don’t necessarily lend themselves to good fiction. Too much pontification places a drag on crime novels. You either get it or you don’t. Readers who get it don’t need to wade through obvious lectures to reinforce their beliefs. Readers who don’t get it — well, how many of them actually read a novel that doesn’t have guns on the cover or the word Patriot in the title?

Those We Thought We Knew works best when it captures the pain of Toya’s mother and grandmother, both of whom feel a mix of pride at her bravery and regret that they didn’t talk her out of high-profile activism in a redneck community. A scene involving the grandmother’s response to redneck kids revving the diesel engine of a pickup to pollute a candlelight vigil for Toya is the novel’s high point.

The revelation of the killer’s identity isn’t much of a surprise, if only because it seems intended to further David Joy’s political point at the expense of creating a strong ending. Again, while I agree with the novel’s recognition that people who defend Confederate statues are not basing their opinions on reason or history, Joy’s determination to make the point that they are defending a tradition of racism interferes with his storytelling. The strengths of Those We Thought We Knew nevertheless outweigh my reservations about the way the story is told.

RECOMMENDED

Race relations come to a boiling point in a North Carolina town, and local law enforcement must solve two brutal crimes in the aftermath. Definitely an auto-buy/read author for me. I enjoyed the first 2/3 of the book the most. Very discussable book and ending. I was provided with an advance reader copy via NetGalley.

David Joy is a brilliant writer. His stories, set in the Carolina mountains that he calls home are resonant, visceral, and always about believable characters that hail from the hardscrabble working class. Those We Thought We Knew is his best. My thanks go to Net Galley and Putnam Penguin for the review copy. This book is for sale now.

Sylva, North Carolina is the sort of insular, homespun community that you don’t see much of anymore. Everybody knows everybody, not only by name but by family, religion, and a host of salient details that form their backstories. There’s not a lot of traffic in or out of Sylva, nestled as it is in a hollow of the mountains. Now, however, two newcomers have arrived, but they aren’t together. Surely not. One is a lowlife vagrant, a pencil-necked, mullet-headed, greasy drunk in an ’84 Caprice named William Dean Cawthorne. When the sheriff’s deputies roust him, one of them finds a small notebook that contains some surprising names; he also has a long, white robe in the car, and with it, a conical white head covering with eyeholes in it. Mr. Cawthorne, you see, is a recruiter for the Klan.

Toya Gardner comes to town at about the same time to visit her grandmother and work on her thesis. She’s a graduate student from Atlanta; she creates meaningful African-American sculptures and other art works. But when she finds the statue of the Confederate soldier in the town square, she is inspired to make a different artistic statement than she’d originally planned, and when she does, all hell breaks loose.

This searing story sees two terrible crimes unfold in sleepy little Sylva. The dynamics that exist between the county sheriff, the Sylva police force, and the local citizenry—particularly Toya’s family—are rich and complex, and they showcase Joy’s best character development to date. In the end, we must concede that alongside the horrors represented by overt white supremacists, the more chilling may be that which simmers below the surface of men and women that, yes, We Thought We Knew.

This is brave writing. Joy will no doubt be the subject of some unfriendly attention because of it. My hope is that it draws the accolades that it deserves from those that seek true social justice, and that it will inspire useful, critical introspection and conversation on the part of its readers.

Highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for the eARC.

I have not read anything by this author before, but after reading this one I know I will. This book is hard - you need to know that going into it. The author is not going to care about how you feel and if the words will be hard to digest, perhaps that is more so the point. Highly recommend.