Sometimes a book comes along that defies comparison. On the podcast we often discuss two books in tandem, but in this episode, the Booklovers team discusses the singular experience of reading Dan Chaon’s 2017 novel Ill Will. In Ill Will, the Tillman family, primarily family patriarch Dustin, grapples with the release of Dustin’s stepbrother Rusty from prison after his exoneration from guilt for murdering Dustin’s parents, along with their aunt and uncle, 30 years before. Dustin also balances the collapse of his nuclear family as his wife succumbs to a terminal illness, one son estranges himself, and another embraces his opioid addiction, while one of the patients at his therapy practice convinces him to dig into the possibly interconnected suspicious deaths of a dozen young men over the last twelve years.

Ill Will manages to combine aspects of horror, psychological thriller, literary fiction and murder mystery. In addition to the broad range of the plot, Chaon also touches on a number of themes, from loss and grief to the fear of the unknown, drug addiction, and the trappings of memory. We delve into what makes Ill Will such a unique novel, and why its unique method of storytelling makes it a modern classic.