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A review by danubooks
All That Is Mine I Carry with Me by William Landay
3.0
How much loyalty does a child have to a parent?
The seemingly happy Larkin family of five in Newton, MA, is forever changed one winter’s day in 1975. Ten year old Miranda, the youngest of the three children, arrives home from school to an empty house. At first, she thinks her mom must have just run out to do an errand…her pocketbooks is stil in the front hall…but hours pass, and Miranda is still all alone. She’s worried, but doesn’t know who she should call. Certainly not disturb her father at work…he is a criminal defense attorney, and she understands that his work is important, she shouldn’t bother him. Her older brothers, Alex and Jeff come home, and they reassure her that it is probably nothing. Finally, her father comes home, and Dan Larkin knows something is terribly wrong. He calls friends, and finally the police, using his connections in the legal community to get a quicker response than might ordinarily be the case. An investigation begins, with a young detective named Tom Glover in charge, but no sign of Jane Larkin is found. Her car turns up at the local train station….with the steering wheel and other surfaces on the driver’s side wiped clean, and only Larkin family fingerprints found elsewhere. She seems to have just vanished. If she decided to leave her husband, would she have left her children behind? And where would she have gone? Was she abducted from her home? Or, the worst possible scenario, did her husband Dan kill her and dispose of her body? As days, then weeks, and then months go by, suspicion about Dan’s potential involvement increase both in the eyes of the police and in the media. Without a body, and without clear evidence of a crime committed or of Dan’s involvement in it, Dan is never charged with her murder. In the eyes of the world, though, particularly in his community, he is guilty. Jane’s sister Kate and their parents certainly believe that Dan killed her. Especially when it turns out that he has a girlfriend on the side, one who within the year he moves into his family’s home (with her teenaged daughter) and takes on a Caribbean vacation that Jane had planned before her disappearance. His children will spend the rest of their life not knowing if their mother is dead or alive, and dealing with the taint of their father’s presumed crime. If they believe him to be innocent, are they betraying their mother? How can they love their father and still wonder if he is a murderer?
Years pass, relationships grow strained. And then bones are found near a lake where the family had taken a summer vacation. They are identified as Jane’s, but no conclusive cause of death can be found, nor can Dan be placed in the area at the time of her disappearance. Still no charges will be brought against him by the DA. Finally, with Dan suffering from Alzheimer’s, the Larkin children ask Phil, a longtime friend and author, to write about the case. Can he help find a resolution, once and for all?
The story is certainly an interesting proposition. How can children chose a side between parents in a case like this? Could you live with a parent who you suspect, even just a bit, may have killed your other parent? Can loyalty be divided? The anguish of the family felt very real, with each of the three children reacting differently and handling the turmoil in their own way. The reader is led down different paths, at times with new evidence being discovered, at others by a change of narrator offering an alternate perspective. At times the book seemed to wander a bit, lingering over details that turned out not to be terribly important. Characters like Detective Tom Glover were developed to a point and then set aside. I would say the book is good, but not great. To be fair, I had a similar assessment of Mr. Landay’s previous book, “Defending Jacob”. Many people thought it fantastic, but I thought it fell a bit short of its perspective…so consider that as you weigh my review. Worth the read? Definitely. Could it have been better, tighter perhaps? In my view, yes, but read it yourself and come to your own conclusion. Readers of Noah Hawley and Peter Swanson may also find this book to their liking.
The seemingly happy Larkin family of five in Newton, MA, is forever changed one winter’s day in 1975. Ten year old Miranda, the youngest of the three children, arrives home from school to an empty house. At first, she thinks her mom must have just run out to do an errand…her pocketbooks is stil in the front hall…but hours pass, and Miranda is still all alone. She’s worried, but doesn’t know who she should call. Certainly not disturb her father at work…he is a criminal defense attorney, and she understands that his work is important, she shouldn’t bother him. Her older brothers, Alex and Jeff come home, and they reassure her that it is probably nothing. Finally, her father comes home, and Dan Larkin knows something is terribly wrong. He calls friends, and finally the police, using his connections in the legal community to get a quicker response than might ordinarily be the case. An investigation begins, with a young detective named Tom Glover in charge, but no sign of Jane Larkin is found. Her car turns up at the local train station….with the steering wheel and other surfaces on the driver’s side wiped clean, and only Larkin family fingerprints found elsewhere. She seems to have just vanished. If she decided to leave her husband, would she have left her children behind? And where would she have gone? Was she abducted from her home? Or, the worst possible scenario, did her husband Dan kill her and dispose of her body? As days, then weeks, and then months go by, suspicion about Dan’s potential involvement increase both in the eyes of the police and in the media. Without a body, and without clear evidence of a crime committed or of Dan’s involvement in it, Dan is never charged with her murder. In the eyes of the world, though, particularly in his community, he is guilty. Jane’s sister Kate and their parents certainly believe that Dan killed her. Especially when it turns out that he has a girlfriend on the side, one who within the year he moves into his family’s home (with her teenaged daughter) and takes on a Caribbean vacation that Jane had planned before her disappearance. His children will spend the rest of their life not knowing if their mother is dead or alive, and dealing with the taint of their father’s presumed crime. If they believe him to be innocent, are they betraying their mother? How can they love their father and still wonder if he is a murderer?
Years pass, relationships grow strained. And then bones are found near a lake where the family had taken a summer vacation. They are identified as Jane’s, but no conclusive cause of death can be found, nor can Dan be placed in the area at the time of her disappearance. Still no charges will be brought against him by the DA. Finally, with Dan suffering from Alzheimer’s, the Larkin children ask Phil, a longtime friend and author, to write about the case. Can he help find a resolution, once and for all?
The story is certainly an interesting proposition. How can children chose a side between parents in a case like this? Could you live with a parent who you suspect, even just a bit, may have killed your other parent? Can loyalty be divided? The anguish of the family felt very real, with each of the three children reacting differently and handling the turmoil in their own way. The reader is led down different paths, at times with new evidence being discovered, at others by a change of narrator offering an alternate perspective. At times the book seemed to wander a bit, lingering over details that turned out not to be terribly important. Characters like Detective Tom Glover were developed to a point and then set aside. I would say the book is good, but not great. To be fair, I had a similar assessment of Mr. Landay’s previous book, “Defending Jacob”. Many people thought it fantastic, but I thought it fell a bit short of its perspective…so consider that as you weigh my review. Worth the read? Definitely. Could it have been better, tighter perhaps? In my view, yes, but read it yourself and come to your own conclusion. Readers of Noah Hawley and Peter Swanson may also find this book to their liking.