Between Here and April - Deborah Copaken Kogan

Synopsis from B&N: When a deep-seated memory suddenly surfaces, Elizabeth Burns becomes obsessed with the long-ago disappearance of her childhood friend April Cassidy. Driven to investigate, Elizabeth discovers a thirty-five-year-old newspaper article revealing the details that had been hidden from her as a child—shocking revelations about April's mother, Adele.



Elizabeth, now herself a mother, seeks out anyone who might help piece together the final months, days, and hours of this troubled woman's life, but the answers yield only more questions. And those questions lead back to Elizabeth's own life: her own compromised marriage, her increasing self-doubt and dissatisfaction, and finally, a fearsome reckoning with what it means to be a wife and mother.

Book club book for October.

I have never thought much about depression and suicide as a mother. When I have, my thoughts have (honestly) been toward what a horrible mother the woman must have been. This book challenged me to look at it all differently – through the lens of overwhelming motherhood. Not that it ever makes it okay. But more that there should be compassion on some level.

Joyce Meyer always says that “Hurting people hurt people.” How true is that in these instances.

The story was well-told (although, again, I could have done without the same language and sexuality that seems to pervade modern fiction) through the eyes of Elizabeth Burns.