After Her

Please, no more murdered women, serial killers, bizarre crime scenes, meaningless and wanton sex or amateur detectives. Please, no more trite, ill-conceived plot lines or writers just chasing the dollar without having to deliver anything for it. Please, no more characters who have so little connection to reality that they move like puppets across the page, jerking and flapping and saying and doing ridiculous things, or last minute escapes when it only makes sense that you couldn’t escape. Like a B-movie in which you could write it yourself as you go because the turns and twists are so achingly obvious.

Then there is the condescension. Maynard distrusts her reader so much that she feels she must explain the nuances, our poor ignorant show more minds might not get it.
i.e. "his own apparent impotence at apprehending the murderer (impotence, and interesting word there, it occurred to me, but that thought came years later)..." Yes, thank you, we probably would all have picked up on that deliberate choice of words, Joyce.

When will I learn? If it starts out like a bad episode (and for me those are the only kinds of episodes) of Criminal Minds, it is not for me. I should quit while I am ahead. Not my genre.

No one made me finish this book--and so I have only myself to blame. I was actually looking forward to this book as a kind of light break from heavy reading; a novel that would not demand much concentration or thought--just a good story. I got less than I expected, even when I wasn’t expecting all that much. I will put Joyce Maynard with Picoult and Hannah on my list of authors I need to avoid.

I need a palate cleanser...a little Dickens or Hardy or Eliot would be nice. show less

Joyce Maynard’s playbook seems to be wrapping up a complex and naturalistic domestic story inside a suspenseful and somewhat implausible plot. This book focuses on two California sisters, very close to each other, a little dorky, whose father is in charge of a serial-murder investigation. In the wake of the murders, with her dad on the news all the time, older sister Rachel feels her status rise in junior high, and she starts neglecting her sweet, stalwart sister Patti. As the murders continue with no apparent progress in the investigation, their father becomes a media scapegoat and Rachel is once again on the outs with the mean girls.

What’s striking about this book is how riveting the domestic story is. In the midst of the serial show more murders, it’s really the relationship between the sisters that draws the reader’s attention. It is so easy to believe in these likeable, vulnerable girls and to empathize with their emotional struggles. In the last ten pages, when it becomes necessary to wrap up the serial-killer plot line, things degenerate into B-movie clichés. It hardly spoiled the book, but for me it was unnecessary. show less

“I tried to think of what my father would tell me. 'Don't let any boy give you shit.' But he'd never said how we should go about preventing this.”

It was a summer like so many others, except for one thing. The string of murders perpetrated by the Sunset Strangler, which occurred on the mountain that loomed behind Rachel and her sister's house turned an ordinary year into something extraordinary. The times they spent imagining and dreaming about the world outside of neighbourhood, of growing up, of life, and boys suddenly pales in light of the terror that has their town gripped with fear. At the heart of the investigation is their father, Detective Torricelli, a hero of mythic proportions who far from being perfect, teaches them about show more the secrets that every father should impart to their daughters. The lessons they learned that summer of intrigue, heartbreak, murders and love will last them a lifetime.

Loosely based on the serial murders dubbed the Trailside Killings, Maynard spins a fictional account of two sisters and their adventures that summer, their lives, and their encounter with the elusive killer. More of a coming of age story about what it means to be a girl, about growing up, about a time when children were free to roam the streets, to use their imagination to bide their time and less a thriller about a killer on a murderous spree. I appreciated the nostalgic perspective Maynard evokes when it comes to our youths, the risks and the dangers we thought we were impervious to and also the special bond that belongs to fathers and their daughters. Some loves last a lifetime and began before we could fully understand its importance or repercussions. show less

The Short of It:

Touching, poignant and moving. A beautifully written novel by one of my favorite authors.

The Rest of It:

In the late 1970′s, Marin County, California was rocked by the murders of several young women in the area. The killer, known as the “Trailside Killer”, preyed on women hiking Mount Tamalpais. The detective working on the case at the time, Detective Gaddini, had two young daughters of his own, so the continued loss of life hit him hard knowing that these young women would never return home. After Her is loosely based on the details of this real-life case.

Maynard’s book, follows sisters Rachel and Patty Torricelli as their father, Detective Anthony Torricelli investigates the murders of female hikers in the show more area. The area in question just happens to be the mountain behind their home but even with the added danger and their father’s orders to stay off the mountain, the girls continue to spend their days there.

When the killings continue without any significant leads, the community becomes restless over the investigation’s lack of progress. Rachel. fiercely loyal to her father, takes matters into her own hands.

Oh, what a gem of a book!

I’ve only read one other book by Maynard (Labor Day, soon to be a movie!) but what impressed me so much with that one is what impresses me here. Her sense of place and her knack for creating honest, likable but flawed characters is what immediately attracted me to the story. I loved these girls! Rachel and Patty are what you and I envision sisterhood to be. Rachel, the older of the two, adores Patty. Patty, is often the more sensible of the two, yet Rachel’s imagination is what makes living on the mountain what it is. After their parent’s divorce and the obvious withdrawal of their mother, they are left to fend for themselves. What could be a depressing, dire situation becomes opportunities for adventure.

I loved the simple love and admiration displayed by these sisters. Without a TV in the house, they spend their evenings camped out in backyards, hoping to catch something good on their neighbor’s TV. They play games, shoot baskets and talk about boys. But when the mountain becomes the center of the investigation, staying off of it is close to impossible. Their innocence, given their proximity to the case is endearing. If you long for simpler times, as I do, this book will leave you with a heavy sense of nostalgia.

When the killer makes himself known, I could not help but be angry. As much as they struggle to keep the mountain pure and untouched, there’s no denying that it’s changed for them. And seeing the changes in their father, as he struggles to put the pieces together is enough to almost break them.

Oh, and their father! Anthony Torricelli’s love for his daughters literally leaps off the page. I ADORED him, which is how most women in the story feel about him even with his tendency to be a bit too friendly with the ladies. His tireless efforts to catch the killer, and his remorse over how things ended with his ex-wife lend a sympathetic air to the situation.

Another blogger noted that at page 150, not much was going on but now that I’ve finished the book, I understand what she meant. This book is about many things, but most of all, I found it to be a book about family and what it means to be a family and Maynard’s decision to spend so much time on the girls and the relationship with their father is what makes this story so endearing and heartbreaking. Against the backdrop of the serial killings, the backstory of these characters is like a gentle reminder of all things good.

Lately, readers have been asking me if a book I’ve reviewed is too dark or violent so I do want to mention that although there is mention of rape, the details of the murders themselves are largely left up to your imagination. And given the subject matter, I did not find this book to be dark or depressing.

It’s a mystery, a love story, a coming of age novel and a scrapbook (of sorts) of what it was like to be a kid in that decade. It’s charming, heartbreaking and at times funny. I loved it and highly recommend it.

For more reviews, visit my blog: Book Chatter. show less

It is a hot, dry summer in Northern California. It is 1979. Rachel is thirteen – an age when girls are morphing into young women. She and her younger sister, Patty, live in the shadow of Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County – a mountain they call their playground. But danger is lurking there – a serial killer is taking the lives of women, leaving their bodies sprawled naked except for their shoes, missing the shoelaces. Rachel and Patty’s father is the charismatic detective in charge of the case, a man who seems like a hero to his daughters despite leaving their mother for another woman. When months go by with no resolution in the case, Rachel is determined to help her father find the killer. But her efforts put herself and her sister show more in danger, and have unanticipated consequences for her father. Years later, at age 44, Rachel looks back on the summer of her thirteenth year and finds that her desire to catch a killer has not waned in the least.

After Her is Joyce Maynard’s latest novel and is based loosely on the real case of the Trailside Killer — a series of murders in and around the San Francisco Bay area which terrorized hikers in the the 1970s. I was eager to read this book because not only did I live in Marin County at one time, but I also enjoyed hiking and running on Mt. Tamalpais. I had also read some nonfiction concerning the Trailside Killer (which at the time made me a little less likely to go hiking alone on the mountain).

Maynard has written more of a literary novel than a tantalizing mystery. Rachel is a bright, inquisitive child who is experiencing the pain and awkwardness of growing up. She and her sister are incredibly close – the best of friends. The girls idolize their father, but as they grow up, they begin to see his faults and imperfections too. The growth of the characters, especially that of Rachel, is what drives the story…although there is a mystery, it is not that conflict that keeps the reader turning the pages.

Joyce Maynard writes with an insight into her characters – their motivations, fears, desires, thoughts – which is brilliant. She puts the readers squarely inside the head of a thirteen year old girl on the cusp of womanhood, and makes the reader believe in that character. The novel explores the themes of coming of age, the bond between sisters, the hero-worship of fathers by their young daughters, sexuality, and divorce. These are weighty themes, but they work within the context of the story largely because of Maynard’s skill at creating character.

After Her is a captivating novel which is well-written and poignant. Despite a few plot twists which weren’t exactly believable, I found myself enjoying the book from a literary perspective. Readers who enjoy literary fiction which are part mystery-thriller, will find this novel a good read.

Recommended. show less

After Her is a wonderful novel about two sisters whose detective father investigates a serial killer case, that happens on "their" mountain. The focus of the novel is the maturation of these sisters and their relationship. It is NOT a mystery novel per se, so if you are expecting this going in, you may be upset. I did not, and I just enjoyed the book as it unfolded to me.

Set Northern California in 1979, it also deals with the relationship these daughters have with their very handsome, and chronically unfaithful father, and the mother whose heart he broke.
When we first meet her, Patty is eleven—a gangly kid who loves basketball and dogs and would do anything for her older sister, Rachel. Rachel is obsessed with making up stories and show more believes she possesses the gift of knowing what's in the minds of people around her.

Their mother works day times, and in the evenings she locks herself in her bedroom with library books. Left to their own devices, the sisters spend their days studying record jackets, concocting elaborate fantasies about the mysterious neighbor who moved in down the street, and playing in the natural beauty of the mountain right outside their back door. And finding a rusty old truck, and random hikers/lovers/hippies on the mountain that looms behind their house in their unsupervised summertime ramblings.

I will not spoil the plot by revealing what happens (a great deal of it in the novel's closing chapters), but I will say that the novel is quite effective. The setting is evoked very nicely, as is the relationship between the sisters and their relationship with their father. This constitutes the thrust of the novel; we hear relatively little about the investigation of the serial killer case as the father wishes to maintain his daughters' innocence in that regard. (The coming-of-age elements of the story receive a great deal of attention and are likely to be of greater interest to women readers than to men.)

I love how Maynard has created a poignant, suspenseful, and painfully real family saga that traces a young girl's first explorations of sexuality, the loss of innocence, the bond shared by sisters, and the tender but damaged relationship between a girl and her father that endures even beyond the grave. And after becoming a renown author in her own right, Rachel decided that thirty years later, still haunted by the belief that the killer remains at large, that she will construct a new strategy to smoke out the Sunset Strangler and vindicate her father—a plan that unexpectedly unearths a long-buried family secret.

In this fascinating story with themes of obsession, dedication, loss, and the unique bond between fathers and daughters, especially when their families have been fractured by divorce. I loved that unlike many fictional tales of this kind, there were no predictable wrap-ups of the case. Instead we had to wait more than thirty years for the denouement that would bring justice and satisfaction to the narrator of this tale. I could not put this book down, and and read it constantly over the course of two days. Invariably, Maynard brings us a five star read that I will think about and remember always. show less

Based loosely on Marin County's "Trailside Killer" back in the 70s this book is part thriller, part family drama/coming of age story. The effects of a serial killer on the loose on the lead detective's family is explored. Rachel is the older daughter, now in her 40s, and tells the story as she looks back to her childhood.

I was hooked from page one and listened compulsively until the last page. The characters were well developed and the tension palpable. I loved the 1970's references.

The bond between the sisters, the love between a father and his daughters, the wild imagination of young girls, the emotional toll on their father as the murdered girls accumulated, the depressed mother who read all day....all this and more combined to show more make for a satisfying read. The author flawlessly narrated the audiobook.

This was the first book I've read by Joyce Maynard but won't be my last. I've already started the next one. show less