4.5 ★s
After You Were Gone is the sixth novel by award-winning Australian author, Vikki Wakefield. Almost six years after her daughter Sarah has gone missing, and just a few days after her wedding to a man some twenty years her senior, Abbie Morgan gets a call from someone she’s convinced took her daughter. Just when she seems to be getting a handle on life …

Abbie has thought herself a bad mother at times and carries a lot of guilt over Sarah’s disappearance. Six years on, though, it is still uppermost in her emotions, making her vulnerable to this unknown caller’s demands. If she is to find out what has happened to Sarah, she must follow a set of instructions, do things clearly designed to alienate and isolate her from family and friends, to remove her support base.

“I’d give him what he wanted, whatever the cost, I knew that. Knowing the worst and living with it would be better than imagining the worst and having the story change, daily, like a never-ending twisted fairytale.” This, she does, believing she will be able to take her revenge.

Abbie seems wilful, stubborn and too proud to admit she needs help, perhaps a legacy of a dysfunctional youth under her mother’s critical eye, of being in her friend Cass’s shadow. “The older I got the more I realised I had made decisions— having Sarah, leaving the security of my parents’ home—that were simultaneously risky and gave me a feeling of control. That perceived control, however, was an illusion.”

On her own: “I was me without Cass, without my family being too close, without being judged as a pregnant teen, a single mother, or the careless parent of a missing child.”

The story is told over three timelines: before, after and now. Many will find this an uncomfortable read, with a protagonist whose rationale behind her decisions is difficult to fathom, but most will read on in fascinated horror as she dismantles her life at the direction of an unknown caller with a vague promise, eroding the trust of those close to her. Later chapters bring a twist few will predict.

Wakefield writes a cast of complex characters who don’t easily endear themselves to the reader. She does give them wise words and insightful observations: “I know what it’s like when people treat you as if you’re damaged. It’s exhausting enough trying to live your life without having to convince others you’re fine, just to make them feel better.” Dark, powerful and thought-provoking.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Text Publishing.