The Nowhere Child

Starred review from November 5, 2018
At the start of White’s outstanding debut, American James Finn approaches Kim Leamy while she’s taking a between-class break at the Melbourne, Australia, school where she teaches photography. Finn claims that Kim is Sammy Went, a child kidnapped from her Kentucky home at the age of two in 1990. Of course, Kim’s initial reaction is that he’s talking nonsense. As far as she knows, her family has always lived in Australia, and she has a birth certificate. But Finn—who soon admits he’s Sammy’s elder brother, Stuart—has reams of convincing documentation gleaned from decades of searching, including DNA proof. Kim/Sammy’s first-person narrative as she and Stuart attempt to unearth details of her abduction alternates with a third-person omniscient account of the kidnapping and subsequent investigation. By juxtaposing past and present, the author keeps the tension high. The impatient may be tempted to skip ahead, but they shouldn’t. Thriller fans will want to savor every crumb of evidence and catch every clue. White is definitely a writer to watch. Agents: Jennifer Naughton and Candice Thom, RGM.

November 15, 2018
When a 30-year-old Australian woman is told she may be the child who was kidnapped as a 2-year-old from a small Kentucky town, her search for the truth uncovers secrets that others are desperate to keep hidden.Kimberly Leamy is mostly content with her life as a single professional, teaching photography at a community college and spending time with her married sister and family. When an American man approaches her with the theory that she may really be Sammy Went of Kentucky, Kim is initially reluctant to listen to him; after all, her home life in Australia with her parents, Carol and Dean, had been loving and warm. But she agrees to meet the man again and learns that a DNA sample he took from their first meeting makes her a close match to his own--he reveals that he is Stuart Went, Sammy's brother. Kim decides to go to Kentucky to learn more. Meanwhile, in alternating chapters ("now" and "then"), the story of Sammy's family life and abduction is slowly revealed. Among the too-many plot threads are members of a snake-handling fundamentalist church and guilt about what several characters did or didn't do. In this debut, the author tries to build tension, but everything from lazy writing (one person "chortled"--who ever chortles?) to the constant back-and-forth chapters defeats that goal.By the end of all the melodramatic twists, readers will have a hard time sustaining any interest in the protagonist, her relations, or her revelations.

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November 15, 2018
When Australian Kim Leamy is approached by Stuart, an uptight American who tells her the story of a missing girl, she thinks Stuart is looking for a donation for the investigation. Kim is surprised to discover that the girl went missing years ago, and her surprise turns to amazement when Stuart says that Kim was the little girl. Can it be true? Did Kim's mild-mannered late mum abduct her, and if so, why? The twisting and, at times, disturbing narrative alternates the present day with the time when little Sammy Went disappeared. Australian debut novelist White also juxtaposes Kim's ordinary life with Sammy's Appalachian childhood in a family that was enmeshed in a snake-handling Christian fundamentalist church. White has written a returning-to-your-southern-roots tale with a difference; Kim is exploring roots she never knew she had, and the journey is as bumpy and fraught with bewildered feelings as readers might imagine. While secondary characters are not as developed as Kim, this worthwhile story of a woman's quest for the truth will work with women's-fiction readers as well as mystery fans.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)

DEBUT In this stunning first novel, White weaves stories within stories while keeping the thrilling mystery alive. Kim Leamy is a photography professor at a community college in Australia. She leads a quiet life alone, with reading as her primary source of entertainment. That changes when she's approached in the school cafeteria by a man with an American accent named Stuart, who shows her a photograph of a long-ago abducted child named Sammy Went. Perplexed, Kim insists she knows nothing about the kidnapping, but Stuart tells her, "I think you are Sammy Went." As she comes to terms with the possibilities and agrees to travel back to the States with Stuart, her world turns completely upside down. The small southern town of Manson, AL, is also home to the Light Within, a fundamentalist Christian church whose members, the Light Withiners, handle poisonous snakes and speak in tongues. Some of those members are also Sammy Went's family, and Kim is about to get more enlightened than she ever dreamed. VERDICT White's tightly woven debut thriller has already won the Victorian Premier Literary Award in Australia; its arrival Stateside comes highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 7/2/18.]--Cynthia Price, Francis Marion Univ. Lib., Florence, SC

Starred review from January 1, 2019

DEBUT In this stunning first novel, White weaves stories within stories while keeping the thrilling mystery alive. Kim Leamy is a photography professor at a community college in Australia. She leads a quiet life alone, with reading as her primary source of entertainment. That changes when she's approached in the school cafeteria by a man with an American accent named Stuart, who shows her a photograph of a long-ago abducted child named Sammy Went. Perplexed, Kim insists she knows nothing about the kidnapping, but Stuart tells her, "I think you are Sammy Went." As she comes to terms with the possibilities and agrees to travel back to the States with Stuart, her world turns completely upside down. The small southern town of Manson, AL, is also home to the Light Within, a fundamentalist Christian church whose members, the Light Withiners, handle poisonous snakes and speak in tongues. Some of those members are also Sammy Went's family, and Kim is about to get more enlightened than she ever dreamed. VERDICT White's tightly woven debut thriller has already won the Victorian Premier Literary Award in Australia; its arrival Stateside comes highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 7/2/18.]--Cynthia Price, Francis Marion Univ. Lib., Florence, SC

April 27, 2018
Sammy Went was a toddler when she disappeared from her home in Kentucky 28 years ago. Kim Leamy is an Australian photography teacher living a fairly unremarkable life until a stranger approaches her. The stranger, obsessed with Sammy’s disappearance, is convinced that Kim is the missing toddler. Although she initially dismisses him, Kim looks into her past and finds that things don’t add up. To unravel the truth, she visits Sammy’s birthplace and uncovers a world of southern gothic strangeness: cults and secrets, conspiracy and trauma. The Nowhere Child is a page-turning labyrinth of twists and turns that moves seamlessly between the past and the present, revealing the story in parts and successfully keeping the reader guessing until the final unexpected reveal. The winner of the 2017 Victorian Premier’s Literary Prize for an unpublished manuscript, The Nowhere Child is the first novel by screenwriter Christian White and it’s a deftly handled cracker of a tale. Citing Stephen King as an influence, White delves into a dark and strange world, displaying an assured understanding of his craft. It’s an exhilarating ride and a thrilling debut that is reminiscent of the television series True Detective and will appeal to readers of King and Gillian Flynn. Deborah Crabtree is a Melbourne-based writer and bookseller