Tales of human bonding
Tulip Chowdhury is touched by endless emotion
9 December 2011, 18:00 PM
While I Was Gone
Sue Miller
Ballantine Books
When one comes to the end of While I Was Gone, one has a feeling of having completed a very peaceful journey through a great story. The plot of this story holds a superb build up that takes the reader in a smooth sailing with the characters and events and then climaxes into a great insight about the truths of human relationships, about how unpredictable life can be.
Jo Becker, a vet is married and has three vivacious daughters. Her husband Daniel is a loving, saintly man preaching at the local church. It all sounds like a happily settled family. And yet Jo's mind is invaded by a persistent restlessness. This restlessness originates through events that took place in her life when she was in her twenties. Living in a small town of Massachusetts, USA, Jo finds her mind repeatedly going back to Dana, a loving friend who had died an unnatural death. Nora, Sadie and Cass, the three daughters of Jo, are grown up and are well settled in their own vocations. With the chicks out of the nest Jo is going about her life with her husband, taking out quiet afternoons on their boat, taking evening strolls with their dogs and working with animals at the animal hospital. And yet in the midst of it all she has some eerie feelings as if everything is heading towards a bad ending. She tries to tell her husband that she is getting a premonition about brewing trouble but Daniel will have none of it; he is not influenced by distorted thoughts. And just then Eli, a man from Jo's haunted past, appears on the scene and she finds her life in jeopardy. Eli, part of an early life that Jo wanted to erase from her memories, now stands with her as a tormentor, shattering her feelings and can even ruin her marriage.
With Eli's reappearance in Jo's life the story goes to a flashback in the past to reveal the dark chapter in her life. Jo was in her twenties when her restlessness got the better of her. This taciturn nature made her want to flee from her first marriage with Ted. She had taken a false name and gone away to another town to live with some students. There she had met Dana, the sweet, gentle young woman who had befriended her. Dana had a natural talent to be friends with people and everyone else in the house they shared with loved her. Jo had found herself telling lies after lies as she put that distance between Ted and herself. But Dana often looked at her quizzically and asked searching questions as if she had doubts about all that Jo had to say. Nevertheless she continued to support Jo by being by her side. There were other students --- Larry, Duncan, Eli and Sara. Jo had a hard time keeping out of the way as some male inmates tried to make advances to her. And yet Jo was happy, happy just to be away from her marriage. Jo found life with these students very refreshing and it was like a new start to her life. The students took her in and shared their joys and sorrows with her and she was blended into their life like another friend. And then tragedy struck and Dana was brutally murdered in the house they all shared. The murderer went free as the police failed to find any links to the assailant. It was decided that it must have been a break-in case. Jo came back home after the tragic incident but her marriage was already on the rocks.
Now after all these years Eli shows up when he comes for the treatment of his dog. Jo, his vet, helps him with his emotional upheavals when his dog is put under euthanasia. But what is strange was that suddenly Jo finds herself drawn to this friend of her earlier years. It is as if she is being pulled to a dark void knowing well that she will regret the consequences. All of a sudden Daniel's goodness is not enough to hold Jo back from her peaceful married life. One day when she is ready to spend the night with Eli she finds the murder of Dana so close at hand that she feels as if she has been hit on her head by the murderer himself. Jo is ready to go to the police with her knowledge of the murder but she is stuck for there is no evidence pointing to the murderer. It is her version of the confession of a murderer against his telling the truth again at the police station. Daniel finds out about the nearly-committed adultery on Jo's part and once again Jo's marriage seems to be crumbling apart. Jo is now facing an indefinite future. Her restless nature derives her of a peaceful family life repeatedly and yet for this very reason she is near solving a crime that took place long ago. From this point the story seems to reach the poignant peaks and branches away in different directions, each branch holding a new light to the story line and the characters that come with it.
The story in While I Was Gone is a first person narrative by Jo the protagonist. That makes the reader feel as if the writer is buttonholing him and telling a story. The story portrays different remarkable characters. Daniel is gentle and kind. Jo is her fidgety soul most of the time and yet at times she concocts the truths of life. For instance she speaks of her children,
"Daniel and I lay side by side in the dark, unsure, unknowing, scared as children while the children moved dangerously around in the world, learning to be adults."
Her twin daughters Nora and Cass are two opposite characters. Cass, the boisterous one, is always on hunger for new life. Nora is the quiet and steady one. Then there is Dana, the loving person, and Eli the dark and quiet one. The other students, Larry and Duncan, too are shown with distinctive personalities of their own. All the characters seem to be sewn on to a real story and like a real life situation the characters are drawn with their flaws and goodness. Indeed the story builds up very gradually and when it reaches climax the reader has a realization that there is indeed a life story told with precision in every detail.
Tulip Chowdhury writes fiction and poetry.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
Comments