After Her: a novel

 

After their parents divorce, Rachel and Patty Toricelli live with their reclusive mother who spends her days reading and chain-smoking in her bedroom. Dad is a devoted but often absent father whose demanding job as detective for the San Francisco Police Department leaves little time for ‘his girls’ but the sisters continue to hang onto the hope that their handsome father will pay them an intermittent visit. As most women, they adore him.

Devoid of parental guidance, the girls become skilled at creating diversions and fending for themselves. The story begins when residents of Marin County, especially those in the foothills of Mount Tamalpais State Park, find themselves living in a shadow of fear cast by the recent murders of young girls whose bodies have been found on the mountain trails. The search and the mounting pressure to find the serial killer falls heavily on Detective Anthony Toricelli. In a single summer, the girls lose access to their two most treasured possessions: their mountain playground and the sporadic visits of their father.

To fill the void of the long and lonely summer Patty, a gangly eleven-year-old, becomes obsessed with basketball and befriends a mysterious neighbor who conveniently owns a dog, something Patty’s mother would never allow her to have. Rachel, entering eighth grade and consumed with fears of her stunted sexual development, experiences a huge leap in her social status when the handsome and compelling Detective Toricelli makes regular appearances on the local news. When the ‘popular’ girls at school make the connection between Rachel and her father, Rachel is sucked into their tight circle and finds herself in compromising situations.

The story is not a typical murder mystery thriller; Maynard spares readers the graphic details of the murders. Instead she creates a story that is part coming of age, part romance and part mystery. This is the third Joyce Maynard book I have read and I find her never to cheat on her characters – they are always richly detailed and her storytelling the same.