Alexis Hall's Reviews > Even Though I Knew the End

Source of book: NetGalley (thank you)
Relevant disclaimers: I am Twitter mutuals with the author.
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.

And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.

Further disclaimer: Readers, please stop accusing me of trying to take down “my competition” because I wrote a review you didn’t like. This is complete nonsense. Firstly, writing isn’t a competitive sport. Secondly, I only publish reviews of books in the subgenre where I’m best known (queer romcom) if they’re glowing. And finally: taking time out of my life to read an entire book, then write a detailed review about it that some people on GR will look at would be a profoundly inefficient and ineffective way to damage the careers of other authors. If you can’t credit me with simply being a person who loves books and likes talking about them, at least credit me with enough common sense to be a better villain.

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I read this by accident. Or rather, I fully intended to read it, had a little speak at the first chapter and then it was a handful of hours later, I was crying, and I’d finished it.

Even Though I Knew The End is really quite an astonishingly beautiful novella. The pain is real, but so is the love, the ending is perfect, bittersweet in all the right ways, but I also found it genuinely quite tough going in places. I say this not in criticism (I am renownedly a softie) but just in gentle warning because, while I was vaguely aware the setting was not queer-friendly, I wasn’t quite prepared for how dark this would get.

In any case, the setting is magical 1940s Chicago. Basically, what we have here is a Chandler-esque hardboiled detective story in which an exiled mystic turned PI has to track down a serial killer in order to reclaim her soul (which she sacrificed a decade ago to save her family) from a demonic femme fatale. As you might expect from that summary, the stakes are high and personal, all is not what it seems, and solving the mystery will find our heroine, Helen Brandt, embroiled not in trying to save her own future but perhaps the world as well.

There is so much I loved about this story. The setting—while necessarily lightly sketched in terms of its magical power players—is delightful: a genuinely seedy and noir-ish city that allows the reader to revel in all the hardboiled tropes (speakeasys, underground clubs, sapphic ladies in sharps suits calling each other ‘doll’) while also not diminishing the reality of living in a world that where who you are is illegal. Plus I am always personally here for angels, demons, war in heaven type stuff. It’s such a wonderful fit for noir.

Speaking of noir, I really loved how noirish elements are woven into the story without overpowering it. From the job that is more that it seems, to the reluctant PI, to the involvement of multiple interested parties, to the grim and gritty setting, to the gruesome nature of the murders. Where it diverges, however, was that this is a book (and a heroine) full of heart. I actually kind of love Hammett but, even putting he aside the misogyny, they’re cold books: the detective may be someone who walks means street who is himself not mean, but he is usually definitely a dick. Helen, though, for all her cynical talk, is motivated almost entirely by love, specifically her on-going need to protect her family and to have more time with her partner, Edith.

And, oh my God, Helen and Edith. It’s kind of fascinating to me—from a technical relationship-writing perspective—that I was so deeply invested in them because they’re already a long-standing item by the time the book begins and not actually on page together all that much. And, yet … MY FEELINGS. There is such a depth of yearning in this book that I think I would have sold *my* soul to give Helen and Edith a chance to be together.

In terms of what didn’t work for me, I’m havering on my standard “I wish this was longer” complaint that I apparently serve to absolutely single short story or novella I read. To be honest, I think there was just enough detail in terms of the setting, and Helen and Edith’s relationship, that the length mostly contributed to the intensity of the narrative. I could personally have taken more of Helen and Edith—as in, six or seven books more—but I think that’s more about how much I loved them, not that their relationship didn’t feel fully served by the story.

The only person, for me, not fully served was probably Teddy, Helen’s brother with whom she reconciles over the course of the book. Given there’s been ten years since she was exiled from the order where Teddy has now made a success of himself, on account of the whole selling her soul business, their whole conflict-and-reconciliation felt quite rushed. Certainly, too rushed for me to care directly about Teddy’s choices in the book (although I did care indirectly in the sense that anything Helene wanted, I wanted for her). I think I just wanted to know a bit more about what was going on with him: why he would choose the order over his sister for a decade and then abruptly make a different choice.

Also people are, in general, surprisingly relaxed about being ganked out of heaven in this book.

To go back to the elements of the story I personally found difficult to read—mild spoilers to follow—there’s a section that takes Helen and her investigating companion briefly to an asylum. This is sort of standard gothic stuff, but it’s depicted with a bit more brutality, I think, than I was quite prepared for. In particular, it’s an asylum for women, and some of them specifically undergoing aversion therapy for queerness. This isn’t dwelled upon exactly, so much as noted, although Helen does recognise a woman called Harriet (Harry) from the queer bar she frequents. It’s literally a sentence or two, and I don’t think it would be fair to call it gratuitous, but it’s definitely a haunting moment, and one that I’ve felt pretty miserable about ever since reading.

I have, however, come down on the side of understanding its inclusion here: I think it’s a bit too easy to present sneaking around in speakeasys as a glamorous, romantic part of queer history, rather than something that existed as a direct response to oppression. This scene is a reminder that there were—are still, sadly—real stakes to being queer in the world. And, ultimately, it does dovetail in admittedly dark ways with the broader themes of the book: that love, in whatever form it comes, be it divine, familiar, romantic or otherwise, is always an act of courage.