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A poetic and unsettling book that defies easy definition as does it’s namesake main character
You’re right not to say anything. They hear what they want. The more you say, the more they’ll use it against you.

Race, gender, empathy, compassion, conformity and community (for the right sort of people and with not too much cost involved), adoption, self righteousness, silence, confessions, how everyone is uncertain, broken inside and disguised to the outside.

Pew has a short title and not many pages but takes on a lot of themes. The feel of this book is a bit like the horror movies we are all familiar with: small town, secrets hidden. A lot of references to a ceremony in the society feel like a direct reference to The Lottery of Shirley Jackson. Main character Pew just appears one day (and is implied to be in some way linked to the short story of Ursula K. Le Guin: )

Pew defies labelling, and gets to be passed around in the small town community that tries its best to show compassion as dictated by their faith. Many outcasts of the community start to confess secrets to Pew, which start of strong and chilling (with an example of murderous racism lurking just beneath the veneer of society) but kind of blend into each other through the book, since none of the ancillary characters come much into focus. In that sense the book has a more parable like quality than that it is a deep psychological portrait.

We accept and support you, is something that is often said to Pew during the book. But clearly terms and conditions apply, and the more the main character eludes labelling, the more the fear of the other overtakes the Christian principles. Along the way we as readers are shown quite terrifying examples of demagoguery and dynamics in masses, but in the end the story Catherine Lacey tells shows a possibility of healing.

The ending of the book is not something that stuck with me, but Lacey her writing really is the thing that elevate this book above similar concept like recent works, for instance The Parade from Dave Eggers or Silence Once Begun from Jesse Ball who coincidentally is the partner of Lacey.

Some quotes that stuck with me are included below:

Can only other people tell you what your body is, or is there a way that you can know something truer about it from the inside, something that cannot be seen or explained?

But at some point you have to ask yourself, Roger said, whether remaining silent is something that is having a positive effect or a negative one on your life. You have to ask yourself whether it’s something you’re doing or something that’s being done to you, from the inside, from something else.

You’re right not to say anything. They hear what they want. The more you say, the more they’ll use it against you.

Steven wrapped a hand around one of her wrists, which seemed to end something in her.

I did not watch the television after that, though I felt all the televisions were watching me.

He sounded both angry and happy, pleased with himself and displeased with the world.

I stood still in the room but I was not in the room.

It’s all we have here - sitting right with the community. It’s all anyone wants.

It would simply be a matter of what is best for you. What is decided to be best for you.

It didn’t matter what was said, not this time. A word is put down as a placeholder for something that cannot be communicated, no matter what anyone tries, no matter how many words accumulate, there is always that absence.

Forgiveness is sometimes just a costume for forgetting.

Did she feel she’d wronged or been wronged more in her life? Did anyone ever know which was true? How much harm did we cause without knowing it? How much more harm did we cause when we were certain we were doing such good?