Abbie is a young single mother who took her temperamental six -year-old daughter, Sarah, to a street market and never saw her again. After six years of guilt and recrimination, Abbie begins a new life. She marries Murray, an older man who has a good job, a beautiful home and two teenage children. She also attempts to repair her tattered relationships with her brittle mother and flamboyant sister.
Everything should be going well for Abbie, but a sketch among the wedding gifts that looks like one of Sarah’s artworks begins a slow descent into hell for her. Abbie is tormented by an unknown man on the other end of the phone who forces her to dismantle her carefully reconstructed life piece by piece. Desperate to finally discover the truth about what happened to Sarah, Abbie leaves a trail of carnage in her wake.
Themes of guilt, family dynamics and sacrifice run through After You Were Gone and these ideas are the most interesting thing about the narrative. Abbie is a deeply frustrating character, wallowing in self-pity and unable to see the reality behind her family relationships as well as her relationships with her new husband, past friends and lovers.
After You Were Gone is the first novel for adults by young adult fiction author Vikki Wakefield. There is too much coincidence and too many tenuous connections in this novel. The characters of both Abbie and the kidnapper are never convincing, instead emerging as one-dimensional versions of a grieving mother and the logical psychopath. Filled with big ideas, After You Were Gone has the feeling of great potential never quite realised.
Reviewed by Tessa Chudy
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