The Last Child

This is another book Misty loaned me. I now understand that she loves reading about traumatic topics!

This book started one year after 12 year old Alyssa went missing. We learn that her disappearance has basically destroyed the lives of her twin brother Johnny, her mother, and the lead detective on the case. After the case has been cold for nearly the entire year, it breaks open pretty quickly due to Johnny's astute detective work. While I found myself engaged in the book, I had trouble connecting with parts of it because it seemed so unrealistic at times. This especially true with some of the connections that Johnny makes--the author tries to make them sound logical, but it seems more random. During the course of the book, there are in inordinate amount of murders, including a college professor who saw too much, a prostitute, a dirty security guard, a child molester, a coke head business tycoon, etc. Everyone in this town appears to be connected and twisted.

This book made me question, for about the billionth time, how people put their lives back together after a tragedy. If my *hypothetical* daughter disappeared, how would I go on living and breathing? Would I be able to go on with some semblance of my life as I know it now, or would it be the beginning of my own demise? In my work I sometimes see people who are reeling from some type of tragedy, like my 19 year old college student client whose 17 year old brother drowned. I am supposed to make some judgements about how he is reacting to it--is that reaction appropriate, especially given that his family immigrated to the US from other country and thus has different cultural norms for dealing with death? I hate assigning diagnostic labels to people who are reacting to their own very difficult situations. I always question at what point it is--or should be--considered mental illness.

Well, maybe that's just a rant, but that was what I was thinking post-The Last Child.