The Possible

Starred review from May 1, 2017
Kaylee Novell, 17, has a big secret, and she’s managed to keep it from her friends and classmates for a long time until Liana Fatone, producer of an award-winning podcast, shows up at her door. The second season of the show, The Possible, focuses on Crystal Bryar, Kaylee’s birth mother, who received national attention at age 14 for having telekinetic powers, and again at 23 for being convicted of murdering her two-year-old son. Kaylee, who was four at the time, was the prosecution’s star witness. Liana’s investigation piques Kaylee’s curiosity, and she begins to wonder if perhaps she, too, has telekinesis. Altebrando (The Leaving) nails the staccato delivery of popular investigative podcasts like Serial, a style that she uses to punctuate the questions Kaylee asks herself (“What if Will hadn’t actually seen anything? What if she had come on to him? What if he’d let her?”). Her sentences, though spare, are extremely effective in landing emotional punches (“I’d have to write him back. I’d have to tell him. I wasn’t special”) in this taut and thoroughly gripping mystery. Ages 13–up. Agent: David Dunton, Harvey Klinger.