Review: "Lay Your Body Down" by Amy Suiter Clarke

Lay Your Body Down by Amy Suiter Clarke
Published June 2023 via William Morrow
★★★★

Something is rotten in the state of Minnesota. Del thought she'd left her small-town church—and its powerful preacher—behind for good. But when the man she once thought she'd marry is found dead, she's pulled back into it...and only now is she realizing just how deep the rot goes.

I've been reading a lot about conservative religion lately, to the extent that my s.o. heaves a tired sigh when I tell him about a new is-it-a-cult book. He looked mildly interested when I said I was reading a murder mystery—until I asked him to guess its themes. He thought for a second, and then his shoulders drooped and he sighed. "Is there a cult?"

So, uh, yes. That's where I went in. At the core of this story is Eve—Eve, one of Del's best friends when they were younger; Eve, who tempted Lars away from Delilah; Eve, who is partially responsible for the stratospheric rise of the local preacher. She's been writing a blog since her teenage years, one in which she writes passionately about the messages of purity and being a "Noble Wife" that the preacher spouts. The basic message is clear: if you are good and pure and perfect, your (future) husband will cherish you, and God will smile upon you. The messages that go unsaid, though...

Without getting into a lot of detail about the plot (keep the mystery a mystery and all), I'll say that I flew right though this. Clarke does an excellent job of dropping crumbs that you don't fully register until after the fact, and the creepy religion feels more accurate than you might think. If I'd read this five years ago, I might have thought the Noble Wife blog was over the top, but I've done something of a broad swim through the weirdness that is American Christian fundamentalism since then, and...folks? If you think it's unrealistic? There are popular, real-life social media accounts doing just about the exact same thing. (There are some places in which I wondered whether Clarke has been reading the same sources I have.)

I do wish there'd been a little more open discussion of forgiveness, or maybe more to the point forgiving and forgetting, and what that means. With some key exceptions, the vibe of the end of the book suggests that there will be quite a lot of water sent under the bridge, and relationships healed to an extent that I'm not sure is realistic—there's a lot of hurt to go around through the course of the book, and the events that precede it. And...I wonder how many of these relationships can really be built or rebuilt to full strength after all that. That said, Lay Your Body Down exceeded my expectations and hit at that perfect balance of murder mystery and critical look at conservative religion...even if my s.o. would have preferred me to bring more murder and less cult to the dinner table.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.