Book Review: Lilith by Eric Rickstad

Eric Rickstad is one of the most consistent, and consistently excellent, writers of contemporary crime fiction. His books seamlessly meld psychological and procedural suspense, often to meditative effect. His debut, Reap, was a New York Times Noteworthy Novel while his Canaan Crime Series (The Names of Dead Girls, The Silent Girls, and Lie in Wait) proved popular with critics and readers alike. Rickstad’s last two releases were the standalones What Became of Her and I Am Not Who You Think I Am; the latter was named a New York Times Thriller of the Year. This March, he returns with a decade-in-the-making labor of love, Lilith.

Pop pop pop … crack crack crack.

Elementary school teacher and single mother Elisabeth Ross knows the sound. It’s her worst nightmare, both as a parent and an educator. The thing she’s planned for but prayed would never happen. Gunshots. They’re coming from outside her classroom door, her students taking cover under their desks, her son at risk somewhere else in the building. Then a moment of clarity: survival depends on escape, and so—in defiance of protocol and practice—she ushers her students through a door that leads into the playground and leads them to the safety of the public library. Then, she goes back for her child. 

These are acts of heroism that should be applauded. But in the aftermath of the deadly shooting—which her son miraculously survived, though grievously wounded—she finds herself in the crosshairs again as the school board demands an apology for abandoning procedure while conservative political candidates defend guns and the peoples’ right to them carry. Assuming the biblical name Lilith (Adam’s first wife, banished for non-compliance), Elisabeth strikes back in what she believes is a fated act of retribution, later uploading film of the crime(s) to the internet. The unexpected consequence, however, is that women across America begin committing equally brazen attacks against sinful men in solidarity with Lilith. 

Rickstad’s powerful story is a ticking timeclock of a thriller that breaches new territory by virtue of its boldness. As the FBI closes in on her, Elisabeth—the sole, present-tense narrator—must cover her tracks and safeguard her son. Who will care for him if she can’t? Her existence is now defined by two shootings, one of which she was a victim and the other a vigilante. And while the decisiveness of her actions initially buoyed her, she soon begins to wonder if she’s really any better than the (mostly) male perpetrators (and the laws and lawmakers that enable them). A hero to some and a villain to others, Elisabeth/Lilith is (not so) simply human, and therefore vulnerable to the conflict between rational and irrational thought and action that exists within all of us (and is heightened by trauma).

Lilith may just prove to be Eric Rickstad’s defining work—at least as of this moment. Not only is it a brave exploration of a nightmare that has been realized by far too many families but a call to action for a society that has been largely paralyzed in the collective aftermath. As a parent himself (and a citizen of the world), he channels all the fear, heartache, powerlessness, and rage that comes from (and sometimes causes) gun violence in a revenge fantasy that is both understandable and shocking at once. Sometimes in fiction, as in life, there are no easy answers—only difficult questions that demand a reckoning.