Review: Remembering Sarah

Sarah Sullivan is the light of her father's eye. Mike Sullivan's 6 ½ year old is precocious, intelligent, stubborn and a good bit myopic. She is lost without her glasses. On a snowy, winter day he wants to take her sledding, because he knows she will love it, but his wife, Jess, says no. She'll hurt herself, she's too little, (subtext "I'm an overly protective mother"). But Mike takes her anyway, and allows her to take her sled and climb the hill with a friend. Unfortunately, she never comes back down. Mike's worst fears have come true, as does every father who reads this. His only child has been abducted, and only her glasses are left behind. A massive search finds nothing. And the worst part is telling his wife her little girl is gone.

Five years later, and Mike has still not come to terms with his grief, even though it has taken over his life, and destroyed his marriage. The reason is that the man who everyone thinks was responsible for the death of his little girl, a defrocked Catholic priest, is dying of cancer, and will imminently take his knowledge of Sarah, and her whereabouts, to his grave. Mike's urge to force the truth from the priest is tempered by the trouble he got in the last time he had contact with him. His frustration seethes from the written pages of this book. What can he do?

His life is complicated by his past, and that of both his mother and his father, who seem to have secrets of their own that will not be given up readily.

Suddenly, a clue appears on the same snowy hill, and Mike begins anew his struggle to find out the secret to her disappearance, racing against the clock, in order to come to grips with his loss. The result will astound and dismay the reader.

Though it's probably not fair, I am tempted to compare this book to Dennis Lehane's Mystic River, not only because the setting is in a fictional Boston locality, but because of Mooney's ability to take the mistakes and happenings of the past and intertwine them with the character's inability to deal with the present in such a personal, emotional, and gut wrenching way. Mooney has an uncanny ability to write just the right dialog, or present just the right reactions and emotions of the character, to any given set of circumstances. I found myself thinking, many times, that Mike's response was exactly what I would have said or his reaction was exactly how I would have reacted. Everything rang true.

Just as I thought Mystic River was the best book of the year I read two or three years ago, so far , this is the best book I've read this year.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, John Purcell, Jr. - RAM

Book Review: Remembering Sarah