If We Had Known by Elise Juska
This novel is set around a shooting in a small college town in Maine. The shooting occurs in a mall and the shooter is a recent graduate of the college. Maggie Daley recognizes the name of the shooter, Nathan Dugan, as a former student. She teaches English composition a required course that many of her fellow teachers resented because of the challenge of teaching students who didn't want to take English. But Maggie is an enthusiastic teacher who loved the challenge. The students wrote papers, shared them in class, and talked about them with each other. In many cases the topics were deeply personal and the experience was a meaningful one in their lives. Maggie loves her job and really enjoys getting the students enthused about writing about something important to them. After Maggie's marriage ended she begin seeing Richard, another teacher at the college, but he still lives with his wife even though he says their marriage is over. Because he is worried about his wife's mental health, he and Maggie have kept their relationship secret.
While Maggie is at the center of the story, she is not the only voice here. Another is the voice of her daughter Anna, who is just about to leave for college herself. Maggie and her husband Tom divorced and Anna hasn't been taking it well. Anna has a history of anxiety issues that began a few years ago and that this event is somewhat triggering for. As Anna leaves home, and adjusts to college life, she finds a good friend in her roommate, but soon is triggered in another way by someone new in her life and finds herself struggling again.
A third voice in the story is Suzanne, Richard's wife, who can see that Richard is pulling away from her and suspects that he is having an affair. She had a brief contact with one of the shooting victims and finds herself reacting to the news with a lot of emotion. We see as she discovers who Richard is seeing and takes some action against Maggie.
Another voice in this book is Luke Finch, who was in Maggie's class at the same time as Nathan. For some reason he doesn't fully understand himself, Luke posts on Facebook about his memories of Nathan and then is taken aback when the post goes viral. People start responding to it from all over, and Luke has a variety of reactions to it. Luke is living at home, working in a donut shop and dreaming of a different life. His sudden fame has him reacting, but not always in a way that is helpful for him.
As these four people try to move on with their lives, but find themselves connected in a variety of ways, we see how this terrible event has changed their circumstance so their lives won't be the same.
Maggie struggles to figure out whether she should have or could have noticed that this young man would do something so awful and tried to help him. She isn't sure of her ability to connect with the students anymore and we see her become more and more isolated. With Anna at college, she is alone, and she cuts off most of the world.
This is a book that looks at our connectedness to others and what our responsibility to each other is in a larger way. These four people react in different ways, some of them harmful to others, some harmful to themselves, as they try to figure out how to move forward from in their own lives.
A gripping story.
No comments:
Post a Comment