The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry
3/18/25; 352 pages
Atria Books
The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry is a highly recommended historical mystery/family drama.
In 1927 author Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham left her home off the coast of South Carolina and disappeared, leaving her husband and eight-year-old daughter Clara behind. Bronwyn's acclaimed novel was written when she was twelve and she left behind an untranslatable sequel written in a language she invented. Now, in 1952, Clara Harrington is an illustrator and art teacher. She is divorced and has an eight-year-old daughter, Wynnie.
One day Clara gets a call from London. Charles
Jameson was cleaning out his father's library when he finds a case with
papers and an envelope indicating they are for Clara Harrington,
including her
address and phone number, with a note saying they must be
delivered in person. Charlie pays for Clara and her asthmatic daughter,
Wynnie, to travel to London, but their arrival coincides with the
Great Smog of 1952. To ease Wynnie's struggle, Charlie then offers to
let them stay at the family retreat in the Lake District which happens to hold answers about her mother's disappearance.
The well written mystery and family drama is descriptive and layered.
The idea of a secret language and the mystery of Bronwyn's
disappearance initially capture your attention. The story deals with
family secrets, loss, love, forgiveness, abandonment, and legacy. The
set up to the plot is interesting, but the pace felt glacially slow and
the ending felt inconclusive and scattered. I struggled to keep up my
interest because of the slow pace.
Clara, Wynnie, and Charlie are fully realized characters and
portrayed as real people with strengths and weaknesses. The settings,
both in South Carolina and Great Britain, are well described and come to
life as the characters interact. The narrative unfolds mainly through
the voice of Clara with some chapters from Charlie's point-of-view.
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