LEAVING PHOENIX

A young woman hunting her mother’s killer discovers revelations about her relatives.

As Danbury’s novel opens, teenager Rose LaFlamme is being dropped off at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere by the callous, brutal man who impregnated her (she eventually comes to dub him “the Pirate”) and is now handing her some money to travel to the nearest abortion clinic. She eventually arrives at the unwelcoming facility (“Planned Parenthood…the name Infanticide Incorporated must not have tested well with focus groups”), endures the procedure, and then shortly afterward gives birth to the aborted fetus’ undetected twin sister. Rose keeps the baby, steals the Pirate’s money, and hopes to stay hidden from him as she raises her daughter. This scenario only lasts a few years before he tracks her down and murders her—setting her daughter, Phoenix, on a lifelong mission to find the man who killed her mother and make him pay. Along the way, she encounters her grandfather Liam McGinn and his friend Curt Martinsen and begins developing complicated relationships with both. She changes her name to Phoebe in order to protect her from evil people who might be looking for her—particularly the Pirate, whose fate seems entwined with hers even as the years pass. She grows older, establishes a life of her own, marries, and has a baby, but that generational danger is always lurking in the shadows.

This tense, gritty background plot runs throughout the book and is obviously destined for a resolution at the tale’s climax. It therefore sits awkwardly alongside the bulk of the novel’s main story of young Phoebe traveling the American Southwest in the age of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; learning the ways of the new “World Wide Web”; having humorous misadventures with her pets; and getting to know Curt and her grandfather. These plot threads are rendered with warmth and excellent pacing. Phoebe’s character is remarkably fleshed out—she and Curt are the tale’s best-realized creations, although Danbury can sometimes allow the narrative to lapse into bathos (“I’m a little sensitive at the moment,” Phoebe says at one point, “and I’m feeling a tidal wave of emotions right now”). The increasingly and refreshingly complex personal story that develops between Phoebe and her own child and the newfound family in her life exists a bit uncomfortably next to the standard thriller element of a character as thoroughly evil as the Pirate (he kills his drug supplier; he accelerates his car to squash an armadillo; he has near-supernatural, Javert-like persistence). Fortunately, the jarring tone is not fatal to the tale since the author is a skillful writer with a sure-footed knack for keeping the narrative moving. A significant element of this is Danbury’s decision to delve in detail into the individual backstories of his characters, ranging from Phoebe’s grandfather to the Pirate himself. These extended flashback sequences provide a welcome shading to Phoebe’s own tale as it progresses, and they further highlight the author’s ability to craft moving, believable characters. Liam’s story, in particular, the tale of a good man hitting rock bottom and finding his way back to the world, works as an effective narrative counterpoint to the book’s main plot threads.

A tense and involving tale of a young woman seeking revenge and finding a family.