The Shining Girls

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This article is about the novel. For the TV series, see Shining Girls.

The Shining Girls
First South African edition cover
AuthorLauren Beukes
Cover artistJoey Hi-Fi
CountrySouth Africa
LanguageEnglish
GenresThriller / science fiction
PublisherRandom House Struik (SA)
HarperCollins (UK)
Mulholland Books (US)
Publication date
15 April 2013 (SA)
25 April 2013 (UK)
4 June 2013 (US)
AwardAugust Derleth Award
ISBN978-1-4152-0201-2 (SA)
978-0-00-746456-2 (UK)
978-0-316-21685-2 (US)

The Shining Girls is a science fiction thriller novel by South African author Lauren Beukes.[1] The book centers on a mysterious drifter who murders the titular "shining girls" and one victim's attempts to expose him.[2]

The Shining Girls was published on 15 April 2013 by the Umuzi imprint of Random House Struik in South Africa,[3][4] on 25 April 2013 by HarperCollins[5] in the United Kingdom, and on 4 June 2013 by Mulholland Books in the United States.[6] HarperCollins had won the international rights to the book in a bidding war with several other publishers.[7][8]

Unlike her previous novels, which are set in South Africa, The Shining Girls takes place in Chicago. Beukes said that because the story steps back and forth through history, she felt South Africa would not be a suitable setting because "then it would become an Apartheid story".[9] Beukes added that race issues appear frequently in her work, but "Apartheid would have overwhelmed everything else I wanted to do with the novel".[9]

In 2013, The Shining Girls was short-listed for UK based Crime Writers' Association 2013 Goldsboro Gold Dagger award.[10] In 2014 the book won the British Fantasy Society's August Derleth Award for Best Horror Novel[11]

Plot[edit]

The Shining Girls follows Harper Curtis, a killer from Depression-era Chicago, who finds a key on the person of his latest victim, and uses it to unlock the door to a strange house. Inside, Harper discovers a room covered in seemingly random objects, each with a woman’s name attached. He quickly figures out that the house wants him to kill these women — the titular Shining Girls — who live at various times across the next 60 years. All Harper has to do is step out of the room with the house key and a copy of one of the objects — the originals remain inside the house — and he can visit any year between 1929 and 1993.

So begins Harper Curtis’ killing spree. He visits each of the Shining Girls when she is little and gives her a token item from the room, such as a baseball card or toy. Then, he leaps forward in time by a decade or more, murders the Shining Girl, and leaves a different woman’s token at the scene.

His luck changes when he brutally stabs Kirby Mizrachi in 1989 and leaves her for dead. Unbeknownst to Harper, Kirby survives the attempt on her life. And four years later, with her would-be killer still unidentified, she decides to go after him on her own.

Kirby takes a job working for Dan Velazquez, the journalist who covered her story for the Chicago Sun-Times. She’s upfront about wanting to track down her attacker, and she has an impossible theory — that the man who tried to kill her has been murdering women in Chicago for the last 60 years. Because Harper’s modus operandi (M.O.) includes leaving another woman’s token with each Shining Girl he kills, Kirby’s search uncovers anachronisms at the scenes of several Chicago murders, and she realizes that her own token — the 1985 My Little Pony figurine a strange man gave her in 1976 — is similarly displaced in time. Armed with this information, she enlists Dan’s help to research the pony’s history.

Meanwhile, Harper is hunting Kirby once again, having read one of her articles from 1993. When someone tips her off that a man is looking for her, Kirby turns the tables on Harper and pursues him all the way to the house. After seeing the token room, she tries reporting Harper and the house to the police, but they find nothing amiss inside.

Kirby approaches Dan once more and convinces him to break into the house with her. While Dan fends off Harper in 1929, Kirby gathers the tokens and prepares to burn them. Harper critically injures Dan and returns to the house, arriving just in time to see Kirby set the items ablaze. The novel ends with Kirby shooting Harper and leaving him to die in the burning house while she and Dan escape.

Criticism and review[edit]

The Shining Girls received positive to mixed reviews from critics.

Writing for NPR, American writer and critic Alan Cheuse called The Shining Girls "a triumph" and "a marvelous narrative feat that spans the history of Chicago from the 1930s to the 1990s".[12] He complimented Beukes on her in-depth research into Chicago's history, and described the plot as a "well-made, though extremely complex temporal creation".[12] A reviewer in the National Post described The Shining Girls as "a thoroughly satisfying thriller" and said that Kirby's charm is "irresistible and irrepressible", while Harper reminds one of the 1890s Chicago serial killer H. H. Holmes.[13]

American writer Julia Keller wrote in a review of the book in the Chicago Tribune that she was pleased that The Shining Girls deviates from traditional serial-killer fiction in that it does not glorify the killer. Beukes presents Harper as "greedy and seedy and opportunistic", rather than "scintillatingly brilliant and alluringly damaged".[14] While the book's time-travel theme "stretches scientific plausibility", Keller said that the book's strength comes from Beukes's "audacious imaginative vision", and that she has made "delicate and redemptive magic" out of "something horrific and inexplicable".[14]

Simmy Richman wrote in The Independent that while the book has good ideas, it is "ultimately another high-concept novel that suffers in the execution".[15] He said that the back-and-forth time travel results in the story "feel[ing] all over the place".[15] Richman added that Beukes's characterization of Harper's victims was good, but felt that she does not give the killer the same attention.[15] American author Charles Finch writing in a review in USA Today also felt that The Shining Girls is "not entirely successful in its execution", but added that because Beukes is "so profusely talented – capable of wit, darkness, and emotion on a single page", the book should still be a "blockbuster".[16] Finch said that while Beukes "successfully defines and limits her story's magical elements", the magic "come[s] apart at the seams" during the final showdown between Kirby and Harper.[16]

In a review in The New York Times, American journalist and critic Janet Maslin wrote that Beukes has made The Shining Girls more than "a standard serial-killer story" by "load[ing] it with acrobatic twists", and said it is a "strong contender for the role of this summer's universal beach read".[17] Maslin added that a strong point of the book is "the emotional effect of the victims' unusual virtue" that Beukes creates, but complained about the book's lack of information about Harper.[17] Maslin also criticized the fact that all the story's "occult power" rests in the House, which "has a mind of its own, but we never find out how it works".[17] Alison Flood wrote in a review in The Guardian that if you accept Beukes's "time-travel conceit", The Shining Girls is a page-turner that will "take some beating this summer".[18] Flood defended Beukes's decision not to explain how the House works, saying that "The [H]ouse just is", and that Harper's underdeveloped character is what makes him an enigma.[18] She complimented Beukes on her victims, calling them "vivid, glowing characters", and described Kirby as "one of the sarkiest, most resilient heroines you're likely to meet this year".[18]

Adaptations[edit]

Main article: Shining Girls

In May 2013, it was announced that MRC and Appian Way, Leonardo DiCaprio's production company, have bought the television rights to The Shining Girls.[19] In July 2020, Apple announced that it green lit a straight-to-series order for Shining Girls, launching exclusively on Apple TV+, with Elisabeth Moss set to star and executive produce.[20] In February 2021, Wagner Moura was cast to lead opposite Moss.[21] Production on the series began in Chicago in May 2021.[22] It premiered on April 29, 2022.[23]

Awards[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "The Shining Girls SA cover reveal & ltd. ed. hardcover". Books LIVE. Archived from the original on 29 June 2013. Retrieved 13 February 2013.
  2. ^ "African novels to look out for". The Guardian. London. 1 February 2013. Archived from the original on 4 October 2013. Retrieved 13 February 2013.
  3. ^ "The Shining Girls – Fiction – Lauren Beukes, – 9781415202012". Archived from the original on 23 April 2013. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
  4. ^ "The Shining Girls". Archived from the original on 27 February 2013. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
  5. ^ "The Shining Girls : Lauren Beukes – HarperCollins". Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  6. ^ "Mulholland Books | The Shining Girls". Archived from the original on 12 May 2013. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
  7. ^ Williams, Charlotte (7 October 2011). "Bidding frantic for Beukes' thriller". The Bookseller. Archived from the original on 15 May 2013. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
  8. ^ Williams, Charlotte (21 October 2011). "Shining Girl Beukes lands at HC". The Bookseller. Archived from the original on 21 April 2013. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
  9. ^ a b Jakola, Kaitlyn (13 August 2013). "he Shining Girls Author Tells Why Everyone's Favorite Summer Novel Is Set in Chicago". Chicago. Archived from the original on 19 October 2013. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
  10. ^ "Gold 2013: Lauren Beukes – The Shining Girls". Crime Writers' Association. Archived from the original on 25 October 2014. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  11. ^ a b "2014 Award Winners & Nominees". Worlds Without End. Archived from the original on 24 May 2021. Retrieved 24 May 2021.
  12. ^ a b Cheuse, Alan (13 June 2013). "Reader Advisory: 'Shining Girls' Is Gruesome But Gripping". NPR. Archived from the original on 20 October 2013. Retrieved 17 October 2013.
  13. ^ Tribinevicius, Medeine (1 June 2013). "Serial killer with a time machine". Weekend Post: Books. National Post. p. 20. ISSN 1486-8008. ProQuest 1357333353.
  14. ^ a b Keller, Julia (5 July 2013). "Review: 'The Shining Girls' by Lauren Beukes". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on 19 October 2013. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
  15. ^ a b c Richman, Simmy (18 May 2013). "Review: The Shining Girls, By Lauren Beukes". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 14 December 2013. Retrieved 17 October 2013.
  16. ^ a b Finch, Charles (1 June 2013). "The Shining Girls". USA Today. Archived from the original on 19 June 2013. Retrieved 17 October 2013.
  17. ^ a b c Maslin, Janet (26 May 2013). "A Killer Turns Time Into a Getaway Vehicle". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 3 November 2018. Retrieved 17 October 2013.
  18. ^ a b c Flood, Alison (5 May 2013). "The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes – review". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 19 October 2013. Retrieved 18 October 2013.
  19. ^ Kit, Borys; Lewis, Andy (31 May 2013). "Hot Book 'The Shining Girls' Acquired by MRC, DiCaprio's Appian Way (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 7 June 2013. Retrieved 4 June 2013.
  20. ^ "Apple orders new thriller "Shining Girls," starring Elisabeth Moss". Apple. Archived from the original on 23 July 2020. Retrieved 23 July 2020.
  21. ^ Andreeva, Nellie (26 February 2021). "'Shining Girls': Wagner Moura To Star In Apple's Thriller Series". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on 13 April 2022. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
  22. ^ Swartz, Tracy (28 April 2021). "Christmas rom-com, Elisabeth Moss series, 'Power' spinoff among the projects filming in Chicago". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on 4 May 2021. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
  23. ^ Cordero, Rosy (4 February 2022). "Elisabeth Moss, Up Next With 'Shining Girl,' Says She'd Be Open To A Rom-Com Role Next". Deadline Hollywood. Archived from the original on 4 March 2022. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  24. ^ Frenkel, Ronit; MacKenzie, Craig (6 June 2014). "Sparkle and flair from UJ Prize writers". Mail & Guardian. Archived from the original on 10 June 2014. Retrieved 10 June 2014.
  25. ^ "RT Award nominees and winners". RT Book Reviews. Archived from the original on 2 July 2014. Retrieved 14 July 2014.
  26. ^ "Lauren Beukes' The Shining Girls Receives Exclusive Books Book of the Year: Reader's Choice Award". BooksLive. Archived from the original on 15 July 2014. Retrieved 14 July 2014.
  27. ^ "Lauren Beukes Wins the Strand Critics Award for Best Novel, R.L. Stine and Peter Lovesey Honored". Street Insider. Archived from the original on 15 July 2014. Retrieved 14 July 2014.

External links[edit]

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