Book Review: Joan of the Arcane by Alexandra Fleder

I received an Advance e-copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own.

My pet conspiracy theory is that the local Dominos Pizza hires drivers to drive around with marked cars, even when they aren’t actually delivering pizzas. My theory is that they do this to make people think they’re delivering a lot of pizzas and so that the next time you think about ordering a pizza, Dominos will come to mind.

I give this as an example of the kind of low stakes conspiracy theory I can get on board with. Joan, our protagonist and narrator in this novel, is not into those kinds of conspiracies. Joan used to be Joan of the Arcane, lead singer of a punk band. But when she met her husband (I think his name was John?) she settled down in the suburbs of Los Angeles, living the life of a wealthy housewife. Recently, her children have grown and moved out and Joan is finding herself online more and more, following rabbit trails of increasingly elaborate conspiracy theories. When a new neighbour moves in, Joan is quickly convinced that he is actually a former astronaut who should have perished in the Odyssey explosion. (Think similar to the Challenger explosion.)

Joan sets out to unmask this man, Glen, and quickly makes a friend and partner in her quest for the truth. Her husband (maybe his name was Don?) is disapproving but it’s his mother who really seems in charge behind the scenes and has worked hard to mold Joan into her current form.

Because we’re meeting Joan 20-odd years after her wild years of punk rock, we’re only told about her transformation and it’s hard at times to marry the two images. Joan’s husband (let’s call him John) must have fallen in love with her in her punk rock form but barely seems to remember that existed. On the other hand, Joan steps away from her current life very quickly and surprisingly easily. What has she been doing in the past 20 years? Does she have friends? Hobbies? Has she always been interested in these conspiracy theories over the years but only now delves fully in? It adds up to a jarring experience where I wanted to buy in to Joan’s life as real but it felt like there were some big holes in her plot development.

Because the novel is narrated by Joan, I was never sure how much of her narration we were supposed to believe. To me, it really felt like I was following along with a woman who was having a break from reality and that it would eventually be revealed that her new friend didn’t even exist or that Glen was a figment of her imagination or we’d see John’s perspective and the heavy years that he had loved an increasingly insane woman. None of this comes to pass and I was disappointed to find out that, I think, we’re supposed to believe along with Joan. She doesn’t make good decisions, she’s extremely overwrought, and I kept thinking about how I would smile and nod and try to leave if I were ever cornered by her at a social gathering.

For me, as a reader, I do think this would have worked better told in third person. I did not want to spend time with Joan and I needed a broader world perspective so that I could understand if Joan was meant to exist in the same world as me. I thought that Joan and the novel were going to work to convince me of the possibility that some global power had gone to ridiculous lengths to purposely explode a spaceship, air it on international media, and then cover up the ongoing lives of the survivors (while not even giving Glen a fake name). But Joan of the Arcane seemed to think I’d simply buy-in and believe along with Joan and that just didn’t work for me. Personally, I think there are a lot of powerful people doing really evil things that they’re not hiding particularly well. I don’t think we need to go searching for more preposterous ones.

With a different ending, perhaps I would have felt better about reading this one but as it is, I can simply say it’s not for me. I do think those Dominos vehicles are empty of pizza though.