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BOOKMONGER
Creepy thriller a squirm-inducing read
Northern California
author Jody Gehrman
spent some of her young
adulthood in Bellingham
earning a masters degree
in English from Western
Washington University be-
fore returning down coast
to establish her writing
career. She’s created short
movies, developed plays
and written enough novels
to count on both hands.
Today Gehrman is a
communications professor
at Mendocino College,
which probably informs her
latest work, “Watch Me.”
This creepy psychologi-
cal thriller is an exploration
of ambition, obsession and
morality. Gehrman sets her
story on a small college
campus. Her protagonist,
creative writing profes-
sor Kate Youngblood, is
grappling with the onset of
middle age as her ex-hus-
band marries a younger
woman, her best friend
gives birth to a baby, her
latest writing project stalls
out and fall semester pres-
ents yet another class of
run-of-the-mill students.
Except for one. The
work of 22-year-old Sam
Grist is provocative and
raw and shows great
promise. Kate is shaken
out of her doldrums with a
visceral desire to nurture
this young man’s talent.
But it turns out that Sam
has more than writing on
his mind. Since his teens,
when he was dazzled by
one of Kate’s books, he
has become fixated on
getting to know her. He
has learned everything he
can about her, worked his
way across the country to
be near her, and tried and
failed and tried again to get
accepted into the college
where she teaches.
And now that he’s on
campus and registered for
her class, he stalks her to
learn more about her pat-
terns and moods.
Kate, unaware of the
depth of Sam’s obsession,
is intrigued by his pre-
ternatural intensity and
flattered by his attention.
He tells her that her writing
is luminous. She even feels
a spark of illicit physical
attraction.
Flustered, Kate doesn’t
catch on to Sam’s aberrant
mentality at first — doesn’t
understand his propensity
for violence, doesn’t know
that he considers her his
ultimate prize and regards
any human obstacles to that
goal as “defective attempts
at human life … (m)
alformed lumps of tissue,
hair, and skin.”
But as readers, we are
privy to this, because Geh-
rman alternates chapters
between Kate and Sam as
first-person narrators. This
gives us intimate views
into how their perceptions
are being distorted by ego,
desire and fear, which is
particularly disturbing
because don’t most people
entertain fantasies about
how they’d like to move
through the world and the
kind of people they’d like
to attract?
It’s unsettling, also, to
read this twisted tale in the
era of #MeToo, as people
who felt they were vic-
timized long ago are only
coming forward now.
“Watch Me” might
provide some insight as
to why those folks didn’t
make waves sooner. When
Kate, belatedly, realizes
“Watch Me”
By Jody Gehrman
St. Martin’s Press
320 pp
$15.99
that Sam may be a danger,
her petitions for help are
met with skepticism, even
hostility — for mightn’t
she have been complicit to
a degree?
Probing the gray area
in human interactions and
where to draw the line,
“Watch Me” is a squirm-in-
ducing read.
The Bookmonger is Bar-
bara Lloyd McMichael, who
writes this weekly column fo-
cusing on the books, authors
and publishers of the Pacific
Northwest. Contact her at
bkmonger@nwlink.com.
Botanical drawing classes plant seeds of inspiration
PHOTOS COURTESY DOROTA HABER-LEHIGH
A botanical sketch with art by Dorota Haber-Lehigh
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Botanical drawing by Dorota Haber-Lehigh