"Nymph" a novel by Stephanie LaCava

Verso, 2025 ISBN: 9781804299913

I have a theory that family structure is the most crucial aspect of being human, and it also exists in the animal kingdom. Not only the father/mother and their immediate family, but also the way criminal gangs operate, along with the police and military. The reason people join such groups is, of course, the pay, but more importantly, the need to be part of something — the family. This idea came to me while reading Stephanie LaCava’s new novel Nymph.

The visuals on the book cover and inside flap are intriguing. The cover features a slightly vintage (1970s) European-style image or photo suitable for a sexy thriller, showing a beautiful woman facing the camera with a male figure in the shadows behind her. The title Nymph complements the mood of the cover. In contrast, the inside flap reproduces Rembrandt’s The Storm on the Sea of Galilee (1633). Interestingly, this painting was stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990 and has never been recovered to date. Although most of the novel is set on the Lower East Side of New York City, some sections take place in Boston — making the painting an apt, spectral presence.

Rembrandt’s only seascape depicts men on a small boat battling a fierce storm, while a calm Christ sits at the stern. The painting confronts themes of faith, fear, and mortality. In Nymph, Bathory (sometimes called Bat), the main character, comes from a landscape of chaos, family trauma, and both suggested and real violence. Storms recur throughout the book, but so does the presence of family and friends — though they often vanish. Bat’s environment is unstable as she tries to build a community or family around her, but only in her own way.

The book can be read as a thriller or a crime novel, but without an actual crime. In this way, it resembles Waiting for Godot, where characters come and go, communication falters, and meaning hovers at the edge of silence. With its short chapters, precise language, and poetic qualities, Nymph is a quick read. Yet I believe it should be read at least twice, because its symbolic and Borges-like literary clues give the reader (at least me) the feeling of being trapped in an endless hole like Alice’s. Although the settings are familiar — the Lower East Side, Boston — this is very much a haunted book: intelligent yet moving, circling the need to belong, or at least the dream of belonging.

Reading Nymph reminds me of my own family of artists and life in the bohemian scene. A family of assassins isn’t much different from the artistic world, with its mysterious dynamics, especially between parents and children. A nymph embodies youth, seduction, and proximity to danger, yet she has no control because others are more powerful. She is on a vessel (like in the Rembrandt painting), thrown into a situation she cannot control.

In the novel, Bathory is named after the Swedish black metal band Bathory, itself named after the Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Báthory, infamous for bathing in the blood of virgins. Both the Countess and the band, with their countercultural aura, deepen the mythos around Bat — a world within a world, hidden in plain sight.

Nymph is a captivating story, and I don’t want to spoil anything, but I’m drawn to the culture surrounding it. Stephanie LaCava writes like a mythologist, drawing archetypes into the present and showing how legacies of chaos, beauty, and violence shape our lives. Her novel is a poignant reflection on modern life, with ties to the past. Or, the reader will recognize aspects of friendship and family that I’m sure they are familiar with.