Danya Kukafka

My daughter brought Danya Kukafka's NOTES ON AN EXECUTION to my attention, declaring I needed to read it immediately because it was so good. Since my family members recommending books to me so very rarely happens, I did what she asked, and I'm glad I did.

NOTES ON AN EXECUTION is like nothing I've read before. Ms. Kukafka makes Ansel so believable and so real that I questioned whether the story was fictional. Plus, in a rare situation, I struggled with two of the three women at the heart of show more Ansel's story. It is so unusual for me to find the serial killer more empathetic than the killer's inadvertent victims.

There is no doubt that Lavender is an innocent, barely more than a child herself, no money, no skills, and under the thumb of an abusive husband. I see her actions as nothing more than what she needs to do to survive and to give her child a chance for a better life. I don't fault her for her later choices; I consider them part of her ongoing survival. Having never given a child up for adoption before, I can't truly empathize with her, but I do recognize that the pain of separating from your child would be unbearable. I also imagine that it is a pain that would never ease, so her actions, or inactions as they were, make sense to me.

Even Hazel's actions make sense to me, given her family dynamic, especially the inadvertent competition her parents created between her and her sister. I can see how easy it would be in that scenario to gloat about her sister's fall from grace while also mourning her loss. Again, nothing Hazel does surprises me or seems out of place for her character and her relationship to Ansel.

I do have a problem with Saffy, which makes me view Ansel as the more sympathetic of the two and, therefore, has me secretly wishing he would escape justice. I view her as a meddling know-it-all who hides behind her career to justify her actions despite the directive to stop her private investigation. Everything Saffy does leads directly to Ansel's incarceration, and, one could argue, to at least one of Ansel's victims. I don't think Saffy sees her actions as anything but justified, even though they scream more of vengeance owed than justice served.

As for Ansel, he is the power behind NOTES ON AN EXECUTION. He is so earnest that even though you know that there is no justification for his actions, you recognize that his rage comes from his formative years living in fear of his father, as well as undiagnosed trauma from those days. He is someone who needs mental health therapy more than anything. Even when we see him for who he really is, still deeply traumatized and suffering, you question whether the sentence given to him by the justice system is true justice.

Ansel's life theory - that everyone is both good and bad, and it is our choices that decide how we manifest either side - is an interesting one. I've said something similar to my husband once or twice, but I also recognize that it isn't just our choices that determine which way we go. So much affects our decisions that to ignore them is to reduce those choices to nothing but a coin toss. That is where Ansel's manifesto falls short - he fails to take into account our history, our environment, and the people who taught us.

NOTES ON AN EXECUTION did more to convince me that a death sentence is a cruel and unusual punishment, and we need to eliminate that option in our judicial system as soon as possible. Everything about Ansel's last days filled me with terror because it was all a psychological game at that point. I don't know if Ansel's experiences are de rigeur for all death row inmates, but I doubt there is anything more terrifying to experience than the lead-up to the deed itself.

Ms. Kukafka's NOTES ON AN EXECUTION is the type of novel that begs to be discussed. It is the type of novel where everyone will have a slightly different impression of the characters and the story itself. You needn't even bring up the political hot potato item of the death penalty to have a lively conversation with others. Ms. Kukafka makes it so easy to forget that the entire thing is fictional, and that blurred line between fact and fiction will add heightened emotions to those discussions. It is books like NOTES ON AN EXECUTION that make me wish I were in a book club. show less

A thoughtful treatment of the (more often) sensationalized, creepy aspects of a killer who is never caught, & then he is -- and unlike most stories in this genre, starts at the end, where the killer is awaiting execution, and works backwards. Multi-narrator - each of the women most involved in his life (when they were much younger, all residents in a children's home) & those who were affected by his murders. At times, it was uncomfortable to be in the murderer's chapters - by the nature of show more his personality, mindset, the reader is forced to follow his wandering logic, his narcissitic attitudes, etc. but I realized how skillfully the author was trying to make her point: sometimes there is NO explanation for a serial killer's choices, which should make us all uncomfortable. show less

Exceptional, painful, and deeply human. A story of the women in a serial killer's life, interspersed with his thoughts as he counts the hours to his execution on death row. So many books and podcasts purport to focus on the victims rather than the killer, but they do so only in the context of their death. The women here are the main characters, each feeling the echoes of the women before her in her interactions with the killer. Beautifully written and haunting, especially starting with his show more mother. show less

Although I differ with some blurbs I've read calling NOTES ON AN EXECUTION a thriller, I do agree that this book is excellent. And, although I think the couple lines of Danya Kukafka's antiracist comments (inserted as a character's thoughts) contained in this book are unnecessary, NOTES ON AN EXECUTION is undeniably great in its thoughtfulness. It's a five-star read.

The lives of not only a condemned man but, also, of the women crucial to his life are explored right from his beginning. While show more I disagree with Kukafka that people romanticize a serial killer and forget his victims, NOTES ON AN EXECUTION is the most thoughtful and maybe even the most interesting exploration of their lives and feelings that I've read.

But there is more to this book: Kukafka grabs a reader's attention with her presentation of the stories. Her organization is, I think, why some people call NOTES ON AN EXECUTION a thriller. It really isn't, but the order in which the stories are presented does add tension. show less