Needle Lake: Who Are You?

 

 

Needle Lake  (2025)

By Justine Champine

Penguin Randow House, 256 pages.

★★★

 

I really liked Needle Lake, so why only three stars? Simply because I think a lot of readers will find it slow, despite its short length. You need to know that there is very little that happens in the novel and that the one tragic and terrible thing that does occur is revealed from the get-go. In my opinion, author Justine Champine would have gotten more bang for the proverbial buck had she cloaked that event in more ambiguity. It is the sort of thing that should come as a surprise, not something preordained.

 

If I might borrow from rocker Pete Townshend, Needle Lake is like the opening of one of Townshend’s songs: Who are you? Who? Who? Who? Who? Much of the novel is deeply interior. Mineral, Washington, is a West Coast logging town where there’s not much going on. Fourteen-year-old Ida was born with a heart defect that led her parents to (over) protect her. She is not allowed to run, exert herself, take gym classes, or fight back if bullied. As is often the case, this makes her a target, not a figure that evokes pity. It doesn’t help that Ida’s a map nerd who wins geography contests. Most kids her age don’t think about the bigger world, let alone treat maps as sacred documents or dream about dots on a map that Ida knows all about. As a result, Ida is a recluse who insulates herself from social isolation by leaning into the safety of her routines. She’d much rather study alone in the library than try to befriend her tormenters.

 

Ida’s routines are upended when her 16-year-old cousin Elna comes to stay for several weeks. All Ida is told is that Elna needs a short break from her mother in San Francisco. At first Ida is annoyed by her cousin’s constant chatter about how much better things are in San Francisco and how her mother lets her do as she wishes. Eventually, though, Ida comes to believe that Elna is everything Ida is not: brave, free, popular, glamourous… Of course, at 14, Ida doesn’t yet see that a lot of what she finds admirable can also manifest as recklessness, unrestrained, promiscuous, and faux painted dress-up. And that’s not to mention Elna’s thievery, selfishness, and lying.

 

When the horrible thing that happens finally takes place, Elna convinces Ida to run away with her. They are bound for Los Angeles, a place where Elna is convinced is her destiny. They are on the run for several days, though why police can’t trace a stolen vehicle is the novel’s McGuffin. Don’t despair, nothing awful happens to the girls. The true tragedy of Needle Lake is ineffectual parenting. Male role models are conspicuously absent for reasons that will be revealed, but neither mother/sister is adept at raising her daughter. To add a layer of poignancy, Ida admires Elna’s adaptability and poise, yet Elna is secretly envious of Ada’s protective bubble. Each will have to come to grips with the fact that wishes don’t help in the quest for self-identity.

 

Champine tells most of her tale through Ida’s eyes. She does such an excellent job of showing the world through 14-year-old eyes that it took me back to my own search for identity at the same age. More specifically, it reminded me of just how hard it was to answer the who-are-you question. But because Ida was used to being self-contained and imagined the world and her potential place in it, we get the sense that she will be all right. Elna? The best we can say is that it’s an open question. She certainly has more to reconcile than Ida. I don’t know if Champine meant for us to conclude that morality is the key to making dreams concrete, but it’s certainly a legitimate takeaway message. I wish Champine had developed intentionality more clearly. Alas, a weak ending leaves us wondering if the key to knowing who are you is linked to another question: What is the nature of your dreams?

 

Rob Weir

 

# Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for an advance copy of Needle Lake.