I have read several books by John Marrs, and I still believe that his novel The One is the strongest of all. This is a writer who’s great at depicting dysfunction, especially the female kind. What Lies Between Us has dysfunction galore but it’s the weakest novel by this author I have read so far.
What Lies Between Us depicts Maggie and Nina, a mother and her 40yish yet eternally immature daughter. Maggie is a typical Boomer who stole her daughter’s capacity to procreate and have a life of her own out of selfishness. Nina is a typical Millennial, entitled, lazy, and angry at the whole world for not living up to her fantasy life. The selfish Maggie and the immature Nina torture each other for decades. There’s no place for men in the mother-daughter fixation on hurting each other, and the duo ends up killing the men who appear in their lives.
This sounds like a premise for an interesting thriller but the novel ended up being quite boring. Even the brilliant performance by the seriously talented actress Elizabeth Knowelden who did the Audible version couldn’t save it. The generational stereotypes are so strong that the plot becomes predictable. Maggie and Nina never manage to sound entirely real.
Not a total waste but nothing like the other novels I read by this author.
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