Kukafka writes the narrative in chapters alternating between Ansel, written in a detached second person, and the women, writing in third person. The good is simply the stuff worth remembering.”

Saffy will catch the Girly Killer.Īnsel believes that “there is good and there is evil, and the contradiction lives in everyone. She can’t help but consider what the dead girls’ lives would have been if they’d lived. In 1999, the buried remains of three girls who disappeared in 1990 are found, and Saffy is the NY State Police investigator assigned to the case. Now that he’s in their lives, his presence threatens to tear their family apart. Until Jenny met Ansel, the girls were inseparable. Hazel Fisk meets Ansel in 1991 when her twin sister, Jenny, brings him home for Christmas. Ansel’s cruelty toward her leaves Saffy damaged, reliving the nightmare again and again. Saffy’s infatuation with Ansel comes to an end when she discovers his fascination with violence and death. Gemma’s house in 1984, where they are both foster kids. Saffron (Saffy) Singh first meets Ansel at Ms. She must save herself, or she will perish. Upon the birth of her second son, Lavender’s desperation to escape her life takes precedence above all else, even her sons.

Her abusive husband is unforgiving in his demands that she and Ansel show the gratitude he deserves.

In 1973, Ansel’s mother, Lavender, is only 17 when she gives birth to him in the barn at an isolated farm. Although the story begins with the countdown to his execution, the real focus of the novel is on the women involved in his life, and the lives of his victims. Serial killer Ansel Packer, inmate 999631, has only 12 hours to live. The book belongs, instead, to the women irrevocably changed by his actions. We rarely talk about what we lose when women die. In her author’s notes, Kukafka writes that the novel “was born from a desire to dissect this exhausted narrative, society’s fascination with serial killers. Cover of Book – Painting of a Locket Necklaceīestselling author and literary agent Danya Kukafka was weary of society’s compulsive obsession with male serial killers-the focus should be on the victims and their families, she believes.Īs such, NOTES ON AN EXECUTION is not the serial killer’s story.

Book review notes kukafka