All That Is Mine I Carry with Me - William Landay - ★★★★.¼

AUTHOR: William Landay

GENRE: Literary Fiction, Family Drama, Mystery.

RATING: 4.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: Better if read as a family drama with elements of mystery, than as a crime thriller. Not fast-paced but still gripping. Recommended to literary fiction readers who would like a well-developed, slowburn story.

Story Synopsis:

In November 1975, ten-year-old Miranda Larkin came home to find it empty, her mother nowhere in sight but everything else in its usual spot. Neither her dad nor her brothers know anything, What happened to Jane Larkin? Did she go somewhere? Was she kidnapped? Murdered?

The suspicion automatically falls on Jane’s husband Dan, a criminal attorney who is vehement about his innocence. But in the lack of concrete evidence, the case goes cold.

How does Jane’s abrupt disappearance affect the Larkin family? We get to hear this from four characters’ first person perspectives. The book is divided into four sections called ‘Books’, with each character getting one ‘Book’ to narrate their version of the events.

Note: Don’t read the GR blurb. Go in blind.

Where the book worked for me:

✔ I loved the structuring of the book. It starts with an arc about a popular author writing a book about his friend’s missing mom, but soon, it is clear that the plot is more intricate than it appears. There’s some really clever storytelling in his novel.

✔ The ending, especially the climactic scene. Brief, yet brilliant! It’s the kind that will stay in your head long after you close the final page.

✔ Though the book is quite languid in pace, the story and the characters kept me hooked. Of course, it helped that I wasn’t reading this as a mystery-thriller. Otherwise, the slow unfurling of key events would have disappointed me. The second half is much faster.

✔ Despite this primarily being a family drama, the author still manages to throw in a few twists that caught me unawares.

✔ With four sections coming from four distinct characters, the first person writing could have been easy to muddle up. But each got a distinct voice, and I never lost track of who was narrating that section of the story. What also helped was how the four characters were not necessarily ones you would expect as narrators.

✔ A character-oriented story is nothing without well-developed characters. This one aces on that front. All the main characters are layered rather than unidimensional, thereby adding to the depth of the plot. Their emotions are explored well, and the repercussions of a shocking event on a family are detailed out realistically.

✔ The courtroom scenes were mesmerising. After a long time have I seen a book tackle the legal aspects of a plot so well.

✔ This wasn’t the kind of book that spoonfed its readers everything. There are clues here and there to help your mind stay active while you try to solve the mystery alongside the cast. Know that not all ends are neatly tied, but this adds to the impact of the book.

✔ One of the characters suffers from dementia later in life, and through that perspective, we get to see how hardhitting and unbiased dementia can be. I found this portrayal emotional but well-handled. If you are a caregiver to someone with dementia, it might be triggering.

Where the book could have worked better for me:

❌ The blurb stresses on the mystery angle more than it is used in the plot itself. While Jane Larkin’s disappearance is the lynchpin of the entire plot, the focus is more on the aftermath than on the mystery itself.

❌ The author doesn’t go overboard in giving us in-depth emotional perspectives of the entire family, but sticks to a few select ones. However, this leaves a couple of characters almost like strangers till the end, though they are a part of the immediate Larkin family. Alex Larkin gets an especially raw deal.

❌ No quotation marks around the dialogues in Books 3 & 4. I can tolerate this writing style, but I am not a fan, especially when the conversations are lengthy and all we have is line after line of back-and-forth dialogue with no quotation marks and no indicator of the speaker’s name.

❌ The cover is quite boring. I wouldn’t have given this a second glance had it not been for the glowing reviews it received from my Goodreads friends.

Overall, this is an unusual kind of family drama with shades of literary fiction and suspense mystery. Definitely recommended when you want a slowburn but captivating read. This book will thrill you, but not in the adrenaline rush kind of way.

My thanks to Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine and NetGalley for the DRC of “All That Is Mine I Carry With Me”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.