(Reviewed by JD Jung)
“I’ve spent years in therapy pushing dark memories into a black corner where, without light, I though the wild things could not grow. I was wrong. Left alone and ignored, I’ve provided ideal conditions for them to flourish.”
And allow others to manipulate us with their “truth”.
In All Who Wander, we travel between the present and the late 1990’s, just days before twenty-year-old Brooke Mulcahy disappeared.
Brooke lived with her father in a small Massachusetts town. He didn’t know how to deal with her wild behavior, drug abuse, and affection for the wrong men. Her mother, who had abandoned them a decade earlier, returned on the brink of death, accompanied by a baby boy. Brooke understood her mother’s desire to escape, but harbored resentment toward her newfound half-brother, Robert, or “Bobby.” The narrative in the present unfolds through the lens of Robert, now a thirty-six-year-old civil engineering professor, husband, and father.
When a young woman, claiming to be the daughter of Brooke comes to visit Robert, his life starts to unravel. Brooke’s disappearance was considered a cold case, as her body was never found. However, even authorities believed that she was a victim of a known serial killer. The problem for Robert though, was that it brought back excruciating childhood memories of his life as “Bobby”.
This intoxicating novel transports us to uncharted territories of human emotion and psyche. The characters are meticulously crafted, and we understand their motivations. Author Joe Clifford writes with haunting clarity, and we can feel the intense emotion of the characters as well as the smell of the stench and sweat of everyday life. The conclusion hits you as a complete surprise, and from start to finish, this book captivates, refusing to release its grip.
I seldom give a book the highest rating of “5 Bookmarks”, but All Who Wander meets the necessary criteria. I look forward to reading more from this author.
