In “The Long Way Back,” Nicole Baart brings us a story that is, in part, about the simple pleasures in life. Enjoying nature, taking time to appreciate beautiful sights, seeing the wide variety of terrains and environments that our country encompasses. And the phrase that the main characters espouse, “Always take the long way back,” is a good one to live by. It’s actually my philosophy when traveling. Instead of rushing to your destination, enjoy the trip, the country you pass through, as well.
As we learn, main characters Charlie and Eva Sutton, mother and daughter, have seen most of what America, and part of Canada, have to offer. They’ve taken their trailer, named Sebastian, all over. The “Sutton girls,” as they called themselves on Instagram for a while, spent years of mother-daughter time living more connected than most mothers and daughters. When, through a fluke, an Instagram post went viral, Charlie decided that they could use their celebrity to stay traveling while home-schooling Eva. Thus they became Instagram influencers, getting free accommodations and earning money for posts, enabling their carefree lifestyle.
This book is divided into sections for Charlie, Eva, and the Sutton Girls. Those sections consist of narrative in the point of view of each character (or, in the Sutton Girls section, both) alternating with other material. For the first section, “Charlie,” we see Charlie react to Eva’s disappearance and the police response, and we also learn about the past through various Instagram posts. Baart creates the posts by sharing the text and then describing, in detail, what the accompanying photograph shows, and then has Charlie explain how that post factored into their lives. Eva’s section is her narrative about what is happening to her during the disappearance alternating with college essays that are very revealing as to Eva’s state of mind and her relationship with her mother. The result is an action-packed story that starts with a bang and doesn’t let up.
At the start of the story, Charlie wakes up from a nap while sailing with Eva in Lake Superior and finds that Eva has disappeared. She is frantic and calls the Coast Guard, and quickly the police and FBI are involved as well. A child, even though she’s seventeen-almost-eighteen, is missing. Of course, Charlie becomes the first suspect as it turns out she and Eva had been arguing about how to spend the upcoming summer and their plans before Eva goes to college.
Charlie wanted one last summer on the road, mother and daughter together; Eva did not. They had put down roots in Landing, Minnesota, for the past six months as Eva prepared to graduate from high school. They were living in the home where Charlie’s foster father lived, and the boat they took out was his. Eva worked part-time at the local cafe, and she seems to have had a full life with friends and studying.
While searching for what might have happened to Eva, Charlie learns that things were not as they appeared to be. Friends she thought Eva had were not friends at all, and Charlie (and we) wonder why she had no inkling that Eva really didn’t have any friends. In the second section, Eva, we learn a lot about Eva’s relationship with her mother and the abuse she suffered from her peers at school as a chubby kid.
As we see the search for Eva in progress, we also see, from Eva, where she is and the danger she is in. Eva is smart and determined. What happens to her is not something we could have expected, and it’s fascinating. Baart cleverly creates characters whose motivations may not have been pure, but who make it right in the end. All of the main characters in this lovely story are flawed, some more than others.
One question that book club members reading this book will want to discuss is the role of social media in the lives of our children. Charlie’s pictures of Eva are what made them social media influencers. Is it okay to show photos of children on public forums? Is it okay to make money from using pictures of children that way? Are children able to give consent? There are many ethical issues involved in this discussion and that will lead to some very interesting conversations.
The writing, the characters, the plot, wanting to know how it all turns out, all serve to make this a book that will surely keep you reading late into the night. I was entertained and touched, and this novel made me think about motherhood. We all have different styles of mothering, but the most important thing in the end is the love we have for our children and that transcends time and place.
This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.