What would you do if someone you loved went out one night and never came back? No trace of them seems to be found, the people they were with say they set off for home, and there is nothing to dispute those claims. But you know they would never disappear, that something terrible must have transpired.
The opening chapter of The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell poses just this question, introducing us to Kim, the mother of 19-year-old Tallulah, who tries, with an increasing sense of dread, to piece together where her 19-year-old daughter went when she doesn’t come home. The next chapter flashes forward to approximately fifteen months later when Sophie, who has just moved in to the boarding school where her boyfriend has just started as the head teacher, sees a sign nailed to the back fence, saying ‘dig here.’ Thus begins the unravelling of what actually happened to Tallulah.
Jewell tells the story across multiple voices and multiple points in time in order to play with the reader’s expectations which are established by the first chapter from the perspective of missing Tallulah’s mother, Kim, and the impressions and assumptions generated from the findings of her informal investigation. While I don’t always love a non-linear narrative structure, I felt Jewell generally did this quite well, as she also introduced the perspective of Tallulah, which deftly provided insight into her internal world, and the secrets she herself kept from her mother. The result is that, as a reader, we know the truth is obscured by lies and misperception, and become increasingly curious as to what exactly happened on…you guessed it, the night she disappeared.
One of the things I really liked about this book was the way it drew attention to coercive control; behaviour that is—finally—being discussed as something that falls under the umbrella of abusive behaviour and regulated accordingly in some jurisdictions. However, it felt as though this message was somewhat lost, as the book’s focus was also on a question of class divide, with a critical focus on the behaviour of the wealthy, the impunity with which they live their lives, and the disposability of other people to them. The multiplicity of such themes might have been intended to be red herrings, or at the very least, elements of ambiguity as to the ‘who,’ ‘how’, and ‘why’ dunnit, but it instead felt as though the book couldn’t quite decide what it was trying to say.
This felt even more so when considering the Sophie’s arc. Her presence in the village and involvement in the case is because she has moved in with her boyfriend of six months, who has just accepted the position of headmaster. It’s obvious from the start that moving from London to a rural environ after only being together for six months is careering toward disaster, and Jewell makes clear that, while the relationship may be a good one, the decision to rush into living together in this fashion is a poor idea. While it was an interesting and, I suppose, enriching point to the character of Sophie, its resolution felt abrupt, and it didn’t necessarily contribute that much to the unravelling of the mystery at the centre of the book.
While The Night She Disappeared does have the problem of confusingly entangled messages, which aren’t necessarily properly teased out to their fullest extent, the ending is particularly pleasing in its subversion of women’s victimhood. Moreover, when reading about the way Kim’s life almost becomes suspended following her daughter’s disappearance, I was reminded of a conversation I had with Katherine Firkin, when she spoke to the way cold cases have a particularly horrendous effect on the lives of the families. The depiction of Kim’s grief and the derailing of her life is handled with just the right amount of nuance to add an extra hook to the story, because we want answers for her sake. Often, thrillers don’t necessarily place full emphasis on the fact that when someone disappears, the effect of that disappearance is devastating to their loved ones.
By chance, I’ve read a lot of thrillers recently. While The Night She Disappeared is not the title that springs to mind as the best that has passed through my hands, it is far from the worst. If you are looking for a reasonable story with a couple of elements that move beyond the stock-standard thriller, then this is the one for you.
The Night She Disappeared is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
2017: 19 year old Tallulah is going out on a date, leaving her baby with her mother, Kim.
Kim watches her daughter leave and, as late evening turns into night, which turns into early morning, she waits for her return. And waits.
The next morning, Kim phones Tallulah’s friends who tell her that Tallulah was last seen heading to a party at a house in the nearby woods called Dark Place.
She never returns.
2019: Sophie is walking in the woods near the boarding school where her boyfriend has just started work as a head-teacher when she sees a note fixed to a tree.
‘DIG HERE’ . . .
A cold case, an abandoned mansion, family trauma and dark secrets lie at the heart of Lisa Jewell’s remarkable new novel.
