Touching upon themes of social class and inequality, ambition, family, friendship, gender identity and sexuality, abuse, guilt and grief, I found Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski is an impressive debut novel.

“Your choices have to mean something, even if they mean something terrible.”

The tragic death of a local teenager at a house party sends shockwaves through the small (fictional) town of Nashquitten, Massachusetts.

Structured in ten chapters ( each from a different character’s perspective) in total, divided into five “pre” and five “post” Lucy’s death, this is a slow-moving yet immersive character-driven novel. Among the voices we here from are : a sixteen-year-old who went to school with Lucy and worked with her cousin and was in a romantic relationship with a teacher; a guidance counselor who tries to do right by her students only to have her concerns dismissed by the school principal who is unaware or rather chooses to ignore the possibility that her own daughter might have been abused by an authority figure; the president of the PTA who hides her daughter’s misdeeds; Lucy’s best friend who was away when the tragedy occurred; Lucy’s schoolmate who witnessed the tragedy and is haunted by the events of that night; a young woman from an affluent family in the community who is the housemate of the school’s guidance counselor; and her childhood friend who witnessed Lucy’s father’s grief on the night of Lucy’s death; and Lucy’s mother for whom Lucy’s death was a turning point in her life in more ways than she had anticipated. Of the ten voices, not all were close to Lucy. However, in a small town, you know people who know people – there is a sense of interconnectedness despite the apparent disconnect – less than six degrees of separation. Those who knew Lucy personally grapple with their loss on a personal level - Lucy’s mother, her teachers, her friends and her peers struggling with grief, guilt, and regret while those who know of her are either compelled to draw parallels and take stock of their own lives or choose to remain indifferent beyond a certain point. We do get to know these characters intimately – their ambitions, their personal struggles, and their secrets. The characters are flawed and thus realistic and though you might question their actions and their reactions, the author gives us enough insight into the characters to attempt to understand them.

The powerful prose and the emotional depth with which each of these characters is explored renders this an impactful read. I will admit that I found the “post” chapters more impactful than the preceding section, which felt a tad disjointed. It should be noted that though the narrative revolves around the death of Lucy Anderson, she does not feature as a main character – yes, we can attempt to create a portrait from the fragments provided through the limited perspectives of our narrators and piece together the events that led to the tragic events on that fateful night, but the focus of this novel is the impact of tragedy on certain individuals, and the community, from the perspectives of its female members – women and children.

What keeps me from giving this novel a higher rating is the fact that the ending felt abrupt and left me with quite a few unanswered questions. However, this is an impactful read and I look forward to reading more from this author in the future.

Many thanks to Zando for the digital review copy via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own.

“I used to think that everyone was on the same page, that we agreed being human meant taking care of one another. But now I understand that a lot of people—maybe most people—think that being human just means taking care of yourself and those you’ve already decided have value.” ( )

This book deals with similar subjects to my last read 'Day One' but unfortunatly I was not 'wowed' by this novel.
It is the story of ten women whose lives are connected to and forever changed by the death of a high school student Lucy.
The writing is quite confusing and takes some time to get used to. plus I really did not warm to any of the characters.
I found the story seemed far too slow and disjointed to really engage me and I am sorry to say I was unable to finish it. ( )

I found it difficult to engage with this book; parts captivated me but others left me bored.

In Nashquitten, Massachusetts, a fictional coastal community, teenaged Lucy Anderson dies at a house party after a fall. The circumstances around her death are not clear: Was it an accident? Was it caused by a medical emergency? Was it suicide? Was she deliberately pushed?

The novel is divided into two sections: Pre and Post. Various women and teenaged girls, five in each section, speak about their lives before and after Lucy’s death. All ten are connected to Lucy, some very closely and some more peripherally. For instance, we hear from the president of the PTA at Lucy’s school, Lucy’s best friend, and Lucy’s mother. Sometimes characters will reappear. Jane is the first narrator in the Pre section, but she makes a cameo in the third chapter and is a character in the fourth Post story. The principal of Lucy’s school is not one of the ten narrators but drifts in and out of several chapters. Sometimes a character appears but is not clearly identified until later; this is the case with Maureen who actually talks to Jane in the first chapter though she is unnamed until she narrates the eighth chapter.

There is the mystery of how Lucy fell to her death, and people do speculate about assigning blame. Though there is no definite conclusion, the addition of perspectives negates some theories. But there are other mysteries: Why does Layla advise Sophia to write about her mother in her university application essay? What is in the video posted about Lucy and who is responsible for it? What will happen to Robert Taylor? Why is Eric sent home from his part-time job? Finding the answers for these questions does provide motivation to continue reading.

As the title implies, the focus is on women and girls. The book does touch on some of the difficulties of being female in a small community where everyone knows everyone or thinks they know everything about everyone. Virtually all the females are aware of societal expectations and judgments. Anonymity and privacy are virtually impossible and reputations quickly ruined. Two observations made by the PTA CEO really caught my attention; looking at a mural of the Virgin Mary, she muses “You know a man conceived her because she has this empty, faux-serene expression on her face that conveys absolutely nothing besides: I am here to sacrifice. A miserable image.” And she also thinks that “a girl and a child are not the same. A child is a pet. A girl is prey.”

Men remain secondary characters and often are not portrayed positively. There are two male teachers who have inappropriate relationships with students. Natalie works for “the founder” who is psychologically abusive. Rae’s poet is manipulative. Jane is being raised by a single mother. Maureen is a single mother. But the female characters are also not always likeable. Mothers (Jane’s and Olivia’s and Sophia’s and Emma’s) often behave in ways that negatively impact their children. All this is to say that the author has excelled at characterization; everyone is complex and flawed.

The theme that is strongest for me is the interconnectedness amongst people. Donne’s “No Man is an Island” even came to mind. What one person does can impact many. Certainly, Lucy’s death affects many people, even some who barely knew her. All of the characters are connected in some way. I wish I had kept a chart of the connections among the various characters because one character often has connections with several others: Rae is Mona’s friend; Rae’s landlady is Maureen; and Rae serves Brynn at the bar. And Rae’s nephew works with Jane! The theory of six degrees of separation also came to mind: Natalie’s best friend is Mona; Mona knows Rae and works with Marina; Marina is at the party with Lucy, Brynn’s daughter, and Olivia; Olivia is the daughter of the principal who fires Layla, Mona’s roommate; Layla counsels Sophia, Lucy’s best friend; Sophia becomes friends with Jane; Jane has an encounter with Maureen, Rae’s landlady.

This book probably deserves a re-read because I’m certain I’ve missed important ideas and connections. Some of my questions are unanswered: Why does Rae hate trains? This book is not an escapist read; its disjointed structure requires the reader to concentrate in order to see links. Unfortunately, I found some of the chapters tedious and the subject matter rather dark so I have no desire to do a second reading at this time.

Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/DCYakabuski). ( )

There are dozens of small towns in America encircling large cities where industry has departed for greener pastures. Their declining economies now service commuters and, in a few instances, tourists. Many of the long-term inhabitants of those communities are poorer than the newcomers and have interconnected, frequently dark, histories. Grabowski splendidly captures the insular nature of these psychosocial dynamics in her novel. The adults are flawed and challenged by their own problems while the kids seem to be left to their own devices. Nashquitten, MA is just such a place.

In her novel (really a collection of interconnected short stories), Grabowski explores multiple themes engendered by a small-town setting. These include age, gender, class, ambition, education, isolation, and responsibility. These swirl around the tragic death of Lucy Anderson at a high school party. Each chapter is narrated by a different female character with some set before Lucy’s death and others after. The varied perspectives suggest that Lucy may have been truly an enigma, or this may just reflect who’s talking. In any event, this structure provides some mystery to a plot that is essentially character-driven.

Although the novels structure admirably captures the mood of townies in a small bedroom community, it presents with some problems that Grabowski fails to fully overcome. The novel is quite disjointed and her choice of immersing the reader into each chapter with little to signal context can be jarring. Moreover, the shear number of voices and the brevity of their time on stage make it difficult to fully engage with any of them.

Whether Grabowski meant to make Lucy into a cipher is not entirely clear. However, her failure to resolve the question of cause in Lucy’s accident is not very satisfying. Did she slip? Was she pushed? Did she have a seizure before the fall? Was it suicide? Grabowski makes a plausible case of each of these but leaves the resolution to the imagination. ( )