Customer Reviews

The Speed Queen

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Speed Queen is the exciting story of Marjorie, a death-row inmate from Oklahoma who is waiting to be executed. The woman reflects on her troubled drug-fueled life, and gives the reader a detailed description of her childhood, how she met her friends and came in contact with drugs before she ultimately reports about the crimes they have committed, and which are the reason why she has been sentenced.
Marjorie bluntly reveals the most intimate secrets of her love triangle, -between her, her girlfriend Natalie and her husband Lamont-, gives deep insight in what it is to be to be married to a car loving drug dealer, having a baby and living a life on speed.
The author's unique style of writing is a hallmark of this novel: song names, movies, books, drugs, local drive-thru restaurants and their menues - when reading this story the reader comes across numerous proper names, most of them only Stephen King fans, local citizens, junkies and car addicts have heard of. However, this does not affect the story negatively. The every-day language matches the story perfectly, yet it does not get too coloquial and after a few pages one quickly gets familiar with O'Nan's style and is introduced to the realistic world of Marjorie that is exciting, beautiful, strange and brutal at the same time.

any book you can't put down-literally can't put it down, sticking like tar paper-is a good one, all literary merit aside. all o'nan i've read has literary merit, and this one's no different, but what gets you is the story, the rawness, the realness, the poignancy, the drawing you in, the resonation afterwards. the speed queen does all this and your heart palpitates with hers and it's real and it's horrific yet you're detached, like marjorie, like you can be sometimes in life. you feel her impending doom in your bowels the whole time. it's mainlining literature and feels like flying downhill, on fire, and not caring at all about the crash because it just feels too good.

THE SPEED QUEEN

I am a total fan of Stewart O'Nan. If you haven't read him, do. He writes like no one can and writes well. He tells tales out of school in a dark, quirky, funny, sad, most believeable way. He makes you remember his books forever.

We meet Marjorie Standiford who is going to meet her Maker. She is on Death Row in an Oklahoma prison. She is one of the three 'Sonic Killers' and is telling her life story to none other than Stephen King. It is mere hours before her execution. She always, to the end of the book, maintains she is innocent. Is she? Will she receive yet another stay of execution? Is her story true?

Marjorie tells the tale of her childhood, meeting her husband, Lamont, having a child, and meeting her lover, Natalie. All her memories are excellent and full of details, jumping back and forth between past and present, full of suspense and constantly making the reader wonder if she is, in fact, innocent of these horrible murders.

Marjorie is involved in drinking, drugs, and after meeting and marrying Lamont, they get deeply involved in drugs and dealing. They live for cars, drugs, and rock and roll. When they meet up with Natalie things go bad quickly for all of them.

This is a good book. It is not for everyone, it left me feeling squeamish at times. The book reads well and doesn't disappoint. While constantly wondering about Marjorie being innocent of horrid murders, I could not help but like her and root for her. However, at the same time, she is someone scary and unstable enough that you certainly wouldn't want to be involved with her. O'Nan creates such vivid characters who, good or bad or just plain wicked, you cannot help liking.

Highly recommend this book, although it's not for everyone due to the content and situations.

Thank you!

Pam

This a book for anyone who knows what it's like to drive down a highway with the wind in your hair, the music blaring and amphetamines pulsing through your veins. O'Nans book shows how the intoxicating effects of living fast can turn nasty, and Marjorie, as the unwitting villain who only wanted to have a good time, is one of the most empathic characters i have encountered in a long time. O'Nan shows both the good and bad sides, the temptation that comes with the highs, and the destructiveness that comes with the lows. I cried.

Reading "The Speed Queen" was like actually being inside the head of an alcoholic/drug addicted killer.
I laughed at the macabre humor and loved the premise of the book that the last confession was being made to Stephen King. I will be looking for more books by Stewart O'Nan in the future

I titled this review "quietly shocking" because that's how this character study hit me. The lead character speaks about herself and her history, and her crimes in a matter of fact fashion, from her jail cell. She is dictating it to a fictional writer who will tell her story to the public, this writer is reminiscent of Stephen King. It's a straightforward telling, the horror of this ordinary seeming young women, is not immediately obvious. Her very plain spoken revelation, takes a minute to sink in in all it's import and makes you fear for number of others like her, that must surely be out there. This is not a supernatural tale though you might wish it were.

O'Nan's down and dirty writing style in this book was immensely appealing. His references to cultural kitsch delighted me and pricked my nostalgic heart. The references to the unnamed horror writer cracked me up. I did *not* interpret these references to be "homage", as other reviewers have suggested. I can see why you-know-who balked. Male authors who attempt to tell a story in female voice are always suspect to me, so i tend to read them with a bias. O'Nan did a remarkable job--his "voice" rang true. Marjorie was paradoxically horrifying and lovable. All in all, a satisfying and memorable read.

This was one of the best books I have read. It gives a fascinating look into how an ordinary person can be capable of such horrifying acts. There was never a moment when I didn't feel sympathy for the main character. I also loved the impression of the car culture and vacuity of America. The book is set in Oklahoma. I think this book would make an excellent movie if done faithfully and without sensationalism. It reminded me a bit of the movie Badlands.

<PR>Marjorie Standiford, The Speed Queen, is on Oklahoma's death row. With her husband, Lamont, and her lover, Natalie, she participated in a string of robberies and murders which culminated in a bloodbath at a Sonic drive-in restaurant. <PR>The novel takes the form of a recording Marjorie makes the night she is to be executed. It's implied that author Stephen King has bought the rights to fictionalize Marjorie's story, and she's answering a list of questions he has submitted. Natalie has written her own book, with the help of an Oklahoma City sportswriter. It's partly to set the record straight, or at least as straight as Marjorie sees it, and to set aside some money for her infant son, Gainey, that Marjorie agrees to the project. <PR>The book's original title was Dear Stephen King, vetoed in the courts by King's legal eagles. Author Stewart O'Nan does get his sly revenge in the book's dedication, "For my dear Stephen King," and in the many references to King's books that run throughout the novel. "I've read all your books," Marjorie dictates. "I know that sounds like Annie Wilkes in Misery, but it's true, really. I liked Misery. James Caan was really good in it." That reference to the movie made from the book, tucked in at the end, is just the kind of thing you expect makes King's skin crawl. <PR>O'Nan has already shown he's a talented writer. His first book, a collection of stories entitled The Walled City, won the prestigious Drue Heinz prize awarded by the University of Pittsburgh. His first novel, Snow Angels, won the Pirate's Alley Faulkner prize and was published by Doubleday. Then last year, Granta Magazine named O'Nan one of the Best Young American Novelists. The Speed Queen, though, will prove that O'Nan can be a popular writer too. It's fast, funny and ferociously knowing, a wild ride down Route 66 with Marjorie Standiford at the wheel, and she knows just where she's going. <PR>It's one of the books many pleasures to imagine the unseen questions Marjorie is answering. Some are easy to discern; others take some figuring out. But they give the book a movement forward every bit as fast as Marjorie drives. After all, this is her last night on earth, and she's got to finish these questions, not to mention eat some killer barbecue for her last meal. <PR>There are many points on which Marjorie disagrees with what Natalie has written in her book. Many of the most crucial ones revolve around who did what during the commission of the crimes the three are charged with. More important, though, than the question of who pulled the trigger when is whether Marjorie is telling the truth. By slipping in Natalie's point of view, O'Nan calls into question the reliability of his narrator. <PR>Marjorie's voice is strong, detailed and compelling. Without any evidence to the contrary, we might believe completely in her innocence, in the unfairness of a justice system that wouldn't believe her reiterated claim, "I didn't do it." That seems to have been the essence of Marjorie's defense, that while she was there while the crimes were committed, she didn't kill anyone. She puts the blame onto her husband and girlfriend. The judge and jury, however, seem to have taken the opposite view. Marjorie believes that because she was Lamont's wife, she had to share his blame, even though she says Natalie killed several of the people in the Sonic. But Natalie serves two years of her six-year sentence and gets released, and Marjorie is left in her cell in the last hours of her life, thinking about the ways people are executed in different states. <PR>Like Marjorie on the highway, the book picks up speed as it approaches its inevitable conclusion. There are 114 questions "but the ones at the end are quick. They're all about the murders, all the little details, like what you ordered, who sat in front." In the last section, Tape 2 Side A, the chapters get shorter and shorter, sometimes only a paragraph or two, as Marjorie describes the Sonic killings and the threesome's final confrontation with the law on the dusty back roads of New Mexico. <PR>Like all road novels, this one must come to the end of the road. But it's a fun ride along the way, narrated in Marjorie's dreamy voice and accompanied by the sounds of classic rock on the 8-track. Marjorie's a fast driver, driving just for the sake of being on the road, hepped up by the speed she, Lamont and Natalie have been mainlining. "Those first few hours, it's like you're there. You're fifty feet tall and your nerves are made out of gold. It's like you and the world are going exactly the same speed. When the sun's hot on the dashboard and there's no one on the road and you've got the whole day in front of you, it's like you're going to live forever." <PR>It's that voice that makes this trip worthwhile, O'Nan's power of language combined with his strong storytelling skills. And even Marjorie agrees that's what's most important-- in the last line of the book, her final admonishment to King is "Just tell a good story."

The clock is ticking, and death row inmate Marjorie Standiford knows it. Her demise is scheduled but her determination to set the record straight as far as she is concerned is paramount.

Marjorie has become famous, noted as the "Speed Queen" for her appetite for speed, fast cars and her criminal history. Her last night is spent huddled up with a tape recorder as she recounts her personal history and the chilling events that culminated into a night of total terror.

Equally bizarre is the contrast of Marjorie as a mother of a young son and her relationship with another woman that becomes the fuse for the bomb ready to blow. Narrated to a writer well versed in horror, her story does hit new levels in brutal crime. How does one get caught up in such a situation, how is it that others influence so deeply what course an event takes?

Truly, a unique novel, as unique as O'Nan is with all his books. I am always ready to experience something new with O'Nan and he did not fail to deliver another thriller.