Catherine Ryan Hyde is brilliant in her ability to write novels that make us think. Often her main characters face dilemmas or situations that seem impossibly difficult. But as with her newest novel, “A Different Kind of Gone,” Hyde demonstrates that most of us are more resilient than we might believe, and that people are not black and white.
Norma Gallagher lives in a tiny town, Sloot, that straddles the Arizona/Utah border. She works at the local bar and lives alone with her two hound dogs and her unbelievably wonderful horse, Fred. He’s also known as Saint Fred, and when you read the story you’ll understand why. Her house is simple, with only one bedroom, and Norma keeps people at a distance. She volunteers in the local search and rescue and rides Fred to help look for lost people. And that’s what she’s doing when the event that is at the heart of this novel occurs.
A young woman, nineteen, goes missing from the local campground. She is white, with blond hair and blue eyes. Her boyfriend reported her missing, but other campers reported seeing the girl trying to escape but being caught by the boyfriend, Jake, and walked back into their tent with one arm twisted behind her back. She sent a text message to her parents that she was going to leave Jake for good, and if they didn’t hear from her in 24 hours, they should call the police. So the searchers aren’t sure if they are looking for a live woman or a dead body.
When Norma finds the missing woman, Jill begs her not to tell anyone where she is. She is terrified that Jake will find her and kill her. Norma explains that Jill can get an order of protection against him but Jill points out that Jake is a patient man. Police will only protect her so long and an order of protection is just a piece of paper; it isn’t helpful when a man is intent on harming a women. Jill is terrified.
So Norma reluctantly agrees to help Jill. But she knows, and she tells Jill, that there will be unintended consequences. Because Norma isn’t just a woman who works in a bar; she’s a thoughtful intelligent woman who knows more about life than most of the rest of us. She’s seen a lot, experienced a lot, and has lots of time to think in her fairly solitary life. But when she decides to help someone, she’s all in. Immediately, Norma thinks of how to hide Jill and how to protect her from discovery. And to Jill, Norma becomes almost a superhuman, wise woman.
Five years later, on the anniversary of when Jill was reported missing, Jake is accused of attempted murder. He tried to strangle his wife and was only thwarted when a passerby saw what was happening and used a tire iron to break the window in Jake’s car and save the woman. The woman, Wanda, knows Norma from when she came to hang out at the campsite five years previously, intrigued by the situation and the missing woman. She met Jake then, and even though Norma warned her against having anything to do with Jake, she fell in love with him.
All the important characters in the novel are women. And in large part, this novel is about women supporting other women. Hyde does here what she accomplishes in all her novels—she uses the characters to shine a light on society—the good and the bad. When talking about abusive men and the world around them, Norma says, “And if a woman tries to tell us she’s in danger, and we just pass that off as a woman being emotional, or see her as an unreliable narrator, then that makes the way awful damn easy for those men.”
And doesn’t that happen? Don’t we say—or perhaps just think—about women who stay with abusive men, that we don’t understand why they didn’t leave immediately? After the first blow or black eye. Hyde also takes issue with the reporters who show up to expound on the missing woman, because when there is a missing white woman everyone wants to read or hear about it. They want to know what people believe happened. Is Jill alive or dead? And Norma excoriates them. She tells them that they are to blame for everything that is wrong with media these days. “You need twenty-four hours of content every day so you fill it up with nonsense, and all for ratings.” She says Walter Cronkite wanted ratings, but he got them by being trusted. She tells the reporters, “Thanks to you, nobody knows the difference anymore between what’s true and what they think is true.”
We come to find out part of what made Norma such a wise woman. Some of her wisdom comes from life’s harsh experiences. She truly is a magnificent character because of her ability to forgive, her ability to not judge, and her unconditional support of those who seek her help. She refuses to make decisions for others, and while she’ll tell them what she might do, she recognizes that everyone’s moral compass works a bit differently. Each person needs to take responsibility for their own actions.
Jake is charged with the attempted murder of Wanda in Southern California, where he and Wanda lived. But the local (to Norma) District Attorney decides to charge Jake with the murder of Jill, now that she is formally declared dead. But Norma knows that Jill is alive, which leaves her with a very tricky ethical dilemma. Is it right to allow Jake to be charged with something he didn’t do? She explains her concerns to Jill’s parents by using the example of a bank robber, who does everything in preparation for robbing the bank but doesn’t make it there. He was ready to do it and had the tools in his car, but never actually did it. He can’t be charged with the robbery. Likewise, should Jake, as venal a person as he is, be charged with a murder they know he didn’t commit?
Many thousands of women are missing, yet we only hear about a select few—usually missing white women. We don’t hear about middle-aged or senior missing women, but young, often blonde white women. In fact, it’s called “missing white woman syndrome,” and to the chagrin of many, that results in all the other missing women who are women of color or too old or don’t fit the image that fascinates America being ignored. Missing boys and men are also often ignored because there’s just something about the young, helpless, beautiful, blonde woman that ignites the public’s interest.
What the women decide to do and the fallout from that has serious repercussions. I find it interesting that Hyde uses one of my favorite parables, the one about the man throwing beached starfish back into the ocean and saying that while he can’t save them all, it makes a difference to each one, to justify a different horrible act that occurs. The person perpetrating the act says that he did it to help one person, and if he’s willing to take the consequences, it’s his problem.
Unintended consequences, indeed.
And when the women in the novel reflect on why they loved Jake, it’s a powerful moment. Norma shares her wisdom: that nobody is “just a monster.” She says that even the “worst person has something good about them. The best person has something bad. People just won’t frame it that way in their own minds because they like their reality in nice clean blacks and whites.” Hyde makes us think about the statement that if something doesn’t fit in with our preconceptions, we reject it or ignore it.
Hyde’s magnificent narrative is perfect fodder for book clubs and readers who enjoy introspective analysis of the books they read. We must consider our prejudices, our intellectual arrogances toward others who may make mistakes, and our rush to judge others. Norma is a beautifully complex character who grows and changes over the course of the novel, and while she has plenty of insight and wisdom she shares with both Jill and Wanda, she learns from them as well. She comes to consider what mistakes she made in the past that she must live with. Hyde’s powerful story makes us realize that no matter our age or position in life, we all can strive to change and do better.
This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.