Book Review :: A Scarab Where the Heart Should Be by Marieke Bigg
Review by Jennifer Brough
When an obsessive ‘starchitect’ moves into a remote glass house, her governing architectonic principles start to shatter. In the eye of a self-created cancellation storm, protagonist Jacky “The Beetle” McKenzie’s attempts to maintain a ‘streamlined’ existence become increasingly difficult. As she pinballs between ‘inflated confidence and immobilizing insecurity; the two logical poles of her world order,’ her partners struggle to magnetize her unyielding vision. Where Mark only supports Jacky as her obstinate, successful persona, Clarissa, her secondary partner, encourages her to inhabit the grey space between these poles.
The novel offers an intimate character study that effortlessly flows between the inner voices in this claustrophobic, triangulated relationship. While Mark and Clarissa are a well-drawn supporting cast, one can sense Bigg reveling in the humor of Jacky’s unpalatability. Yet, however unpleasant her protagonist appears while interacting with others, she is far more complex than an ‘unlikable female character.’
Jacky desperately falters towards growth but the reader is compelled to see the journey, particularly when, at one point, she sartorially becomes ‘the Beetle’ that the media nickname her. A Scarab Where the Heart Should Be is a fast-paced meditation on obsessive ‘genius,’ cancel culture, and the push-pull between intimacy and compromise.
A Scarab Where the Heart Should Be by Marieke Bigg. Dead Ink, September 2024.
Reviewer bio: Jennifer Brough is a slow writer and workshop facilitator. Her work has appeared in Ache Magazine, Eunoia Review, SICK Magazine, Artsy, Barren Magazine, among others. Jennifer is writing her first poetry pamphlet, Occult Pain and was shortlisted for the Disabled Poets Prize’s Best Single Poem 2023.
