THE ROOMMATE

Chicago writer and teacher Macon Fleischer debuts with a suspense novel about a woman whose life turns creepy after a con artist responds to her Craigslist ad for a roommate.

Twenty-five-year-old Donna is lucky enough to inherit a bungalow in sunny Southern California from her grandmother, a welcome change from dreary Chicago, shortly before Donald Trump becomes president. But right off the bat, things are odd. There are no personal effects of grandma Rudy, strange noises emanate from the attic, and in the spirit of countless psychological thrillers, Donna feels she’s being watched. She’s determined to begin a new life, but her job as a receptionist at a beauty salon pays little, and the town of Topanga is a bit pricey. Forced to find a roommate, she ignores huge red flags when her Craigslist ad brings a response from the older, gay Joshua Flowers, who had “something mysterious” about him, “a calming quiet that left room for a lot of questions.” When Donna finds that the stink in his room comes from dead mice he feeds an enormous python he’s hidden in his closet, she barely protests, although it’s clear that her new roommate is bad news, especially after he balks at paying rent. Macon Fleischer is a smooth writer who keeps the nasty details about Joshua unfolding at a steady clip and effectively conveys the setting. Early on, Donna finds 20 feet of shed snakeskin near her door: “Topanga was known as ‘the Snake Pit,’ but for the rattlesnakes and seedy residents from the seventies—not twenty-foot-long pythons.” But it’s hard to care about a character who, throughout the book, acts so carelessly and for reasons too often explained, not dramatized. And Joshua is the snake hiding in the flowers, aiming to steal her house and perhaps harm her. As Donna rationalizes his actions, her plight fails to inspire the keen sympathy it should, given that from the start her predicaments have been of her own making.

A smoothly written but underdramatized novel about a toxic relationship between housemates in Southern California.