She Treads Softly: All That Is Mine I Carry With Me

Sunday, March 5, 2023

All That Is Mine I Carry With Me

All That Is Mine I Carry With Me by William Landay
3/7/23; 336 pages
Random House

All That Is Mine I Carry With Me by William Landay is a very highly recommended, excellent and compelling mystery and family drama that is unputdownable.

In November 1975 ten-year-old Miranda Larkin comes home from school to find no one home. Her mother gone. Hours pass and her brothers Alex, seventeen, and Jeff, twelve, as well as her father, Dan Larkin arrive home at their usual time. Dan, a criminal defense attorney, calls the police but a missing persons investigation can't be opened for 48 hours. This begins the four decades long question about what happened to Jane Larkin, which becomes a homicide investigation. Their father is a suspect but there is no body or concrete evidence.

The novel is divided into 4 books, each with a different author and style. In the first an author, Philip Solomon, is writing a novel about a cold case. The other three books cover different aspects and time periods surrounding the case and the family. The family has been divided for years, but the four different books within the novel help document why there is turmoil and division within the family. Read the different books carefully to see whose point of view is being portrayed.

All That Is Mine I Carry With Me is part family drama, part crime/mystery novel, part psychological suspense. The four different book that comprise the novel are compelling and unputdownable. The plot is intelligent and emotionally complex. The writing is outstanding. Landry details the facts of Jane's disappearance, along with the speculation, struggles of the family, especially Jeff and Miranda, and the division and secrets within the family. There were several passages I highlighted due to the insight and depth they contained.

The characters are fully realized and portrayed as realistic, complicated individuals facing an impossible situation. Do they support their father, who may have murdered their mother, or do they stay loyal to him and bury any doubts. Jane's sister, Katie, blames Dan and is sure he murdered her sister. Alex supports his father. Jeff and Miranda are the ones who most miss their mother and who suspect their father is involved, but still hold onto a modicum of doubt. All That Is Mine I Carry With Me is an absolutely excellent novel!

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Random House via NetGalley

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.