WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST

Author: Alina Grubowski

Publisher: Indigo Press

Reviewer: Beryl Eichenberger

When a ship is sinking it is the women and children first to be saved. The title of Alina Grubowski’s debut novel Women and Children First seems to indicate a sinking … the analogy was not lost on me as this novel unfolded.

As I read the first chapter, I admit to being confused, somehow things weren’t hanging together but because I have a rule to read ‘the first 100 pages’ and then decide, I persevered. By the time I got to Layla, chapter three in the ten chapters, the sheer beauty of the prose had caught me, the puzzle was starting to click into place and the characters were shaping up.

Grubowski is a superb literary writer, probing deeply with layered characters. She has a discerning and imaginative style that summons up those aspects of human nature that emerge when faced with a tragedy. Indifference, support, heartbreak, cowardice, concern and growth as well as the stages of grief. It is not a happy story with a predictable ending but it is a story that will stay with you.

In a small decaying, coastal town, NashQuitten in Massachusetts, there is a tragedy – well the town itself is a broken, hopeless, shrinking, sinking seaside enclave that tourists avoid but which traps the inhabitants. The young artistic teenager Lucy Anderson, dies at a party. Accident or murder? The perspectives of ten women associated with Lucy form the basis of the story. Lucy herself does not have a chapter. Written in the first person, present tense, in two parts, PRE and POST, the plot unwinds through these women and teenagers. Slowly placing the pieces of the puzzle on the dashboard of the town. Lives and hopes, complexities, bad choices, defiance, compliance, love, guilt and abuse, drinking, drugs permeate the story as would be expected in a community. The best friend, the counsellor, the teacher, the mother: the ten protagonists shape the life of the dead girl – and her death. Each woman is touched, either in an explicitly heartbreaking way or on the periphery. A ripple effect within this torn town exposing the cracks reflected in the sea wall.

Curiosity will push you through this novel, unusual in its narrative and yet with an ending that surprises and strangely gave me a feeling of hope.