In Catherine Ryan Howard’s latest thriller, Burn After Reading, we once again witness the author’s mastery of psychological tension and deft plot construction. Howard subverts the traditional ghostwriter narrative by turning it into a claustrophobic cat-and-mouse game where reality becomes increasingly elusive and danger lurks in unexpected places.
The premise is simple yet compelling: Emily Joyce, a struggling writer with a dark secret of her own, accepts a ghostwriting gig for Jack Smyth, a former cycling champion whose wife died in suspicious circumstances. Desperate to clear his debt with her publisher, Emily travels to the eerie, half-built community of Sanctuary, Florida, to help Jack tell his side of the story. But as the narrative unfolds, Emily discovers that neither Jack’s story nor her own role in it is what she expected.
Setting: An Architectural Nightmare
Howard brilliantly utilizes setting as a metaphorical extension of the characters’ psyches. Sanctuary is described as a master-planned community that feels like a movie set—all pristine white buildings and empty streets:
“The architecture was oddly timeless, somehow both futuristic and old-fashioned, like spaceships in a movie from the sixties. It could pass for a village of dolls’ houses blown up to life-size, or something the Disney Imagineers would build in one of the theme parks, or the set of The Truman Show.”
This artificial perfection creates an unsettling backdrop for the central drama, reflecting the constructed narratives that all the characters are creating. The contrast between the sterile, empty community and the messy, complicated truths lurking beneath the surface creates a persistent sense of wrongness that permeates the novel.
Character Dynamics: Competing Narratives
Howard excels at crafting complex characters whose true motivations remain tantalizingly obscured until the final pages. Emily isn’t merely an innocent bystander—she carries her own guilt regarding her bestselling novel The Witness, which we learn was based on a real murder that her friend witnessed as a child. This parallel narrative creates fascinating echoes throughout the novel, raising questions about truth, fiction, and the responsibilities of storytelling.
Jack Smyth presents as a sympathetic figure, a man who has suffered multiple tragedies and now faces public suspicion for his wife’s death. As Emily spends time with him, her initial reservations begin to dissolve.
The supporting characters add layers of complexity, particularly Ben (Jack’s former teammate) and Jean (a woman with her own claims about Jack’s past). Each offers contradictory versions of events, forcing both Emily and the reader to question who is telling the truth.
Plot Construction: A Russian Doll of Revelations
Howard’s plotting is meticulous, with each revelation carefully timed to maximize suspense. The novel works on multiple levels: as a straight-ahead thriller with life-or-death stakes, as a meditation on the nature of truth and fiction, and as an exploration of how power imbalances enable abuse.
The structure is particularly effective, with Howard employing a technique reminiscent of her previous works, particularly The Nothing Man. The narrative alternates between Emily’s point of view and flashbacks to the days leading up to Kate Smyth’s death, gradually revealing crucial details that recontextualize everything we thought we knew.
Thematic Depth: Truth vs Fiction
One of the novel’s most compelling aspects is its exploration of truth in storytelling. Emily has built her career on a novel that presents fiction as truth, while Jack seeks to present truth as fiction (or at least a version of truth that serves his purposes). As the publisher tells Emily:
“All good fiction comes from something real. It might be a single moment in the author’s life that sparks an idea, something they see or hear someone say, or it might be a real-life event or crime or conflict that inspires a story, or they might take something that happened to them and fictionalize it.”
This blurring of boundaries between fact and fiction becomes increasingly relevant as Emily realizes that Jack’s “hypothetical” confession might be more truthful than she initially believed.
Strengths of the Novel:
- Immersive atmosphere: The sterile, unsettling setting of Sanctuary provides a perfect backdrop for the psychological manipulation at the heart of the story.
- Complex character dynamics: Howard excels at creating characters with competing motivations and overlapping agendas.
- Masterful pacing: The gradual unraveling of Jack’s story and Emily’s growing danger creates escalating tension.
- Thematic richness: The exploration of truth, fiction, and responsibility adds meaningful depth to the thriller framework.
- Meta-narrative elements: Howard cleverly incorporates elements of the publishing industry and ghostwriting process to add authenticity.
Areas for Improvement:
- Character development: While Emily is well-drawn, some readers might wish for deeper exploration of her emotions and reactions, particularly regarding her own deception.
- Peripheral characters: Grace, Ruth, and Joe occasionally feel like plot devices rather than fully realized characters.
- Predictability: Some readers may guess Jack’s true nature before the reveal, though Howard still delivers surprises in how events unfold.
- Resolution: The ending wraps up rather quickly after the intense climax, which might leave some readers wanting more exploration of the aftermath.
How It Compares to Howard’s Other Works
Fans of Howard’s previous novels will recognize her signature blend of psychological insight and page-turning suspense. Like The Nothing Man, Burn After Reading plays with meta-narrative elements and the intersection of true crime and fiction. Like 56 Days, it explores how we can never truly know another person. And like The Trap, it demonstrates Howard’s gift for creating physical settings that mirror psychological states.
However, Burn After Reading carves out its own identity through its exploration of literary ethics and the ghostwriting process. Howard’s research into the publishing industry adds authenticity to the central premise, while her invention of Sanctuary as a location provides a distinctive and memorable backdrop.
Final Verdict: A Sophisticated Thriller That Burns Bright
Catherine Ryan Howard has delivered another compulsively readable thriller that satisfies on both visceral and intellectual levels. Burn After Reading combines the page-turning qualities of a beach read with thought-provoking questions about truth, fiction, and responsibility. The novel’s strengths far outweigh its minor flaws, resulting in a reading experience that will please both longtime fans and newcomers to Howard’s work.
The novel’s closing line—”But, I might have an idea”—perfectly encapsulates the cyclical nature of storytelling that Howard explores throughout. Just as Jack attempted to twist his narrative into something that would serve his purposes, Emily considers transforming her experiences into fiction. The difference lies in their motives: Jack seeks to escape consequences, while Emily seeks to reveal truth.
Whether you’re drawn to psychological suspense, character-driven drama, or clever meta-narrative tricks, Burn After Reading delivers on multiple levels. Like the best works in the genre, it forces readers to question not just whodunit, but the very nature of truth itself.
- For fans of: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, and The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard.