by William Landay ★★★★☆
Long before there was an Apple TV+ miniseries called Defending Jacob, there was the book of the same title on which the series was based. Written back in 2012 by William Landay, it was a captivating courtroom drama that I truly enjoyed reading -- a 5-star book for me. But it's been 11 long years since that book came out, and so when I heard Landay finally had another novel slated for this year, it was near the top of my most anticipated books of 2023.
All That Is Mine I Carry With Me centers on the disappearance of a woman, Jane Larkin, in 1975. On the surface, things seemed fine at home. She was the mother of three teenagers and a wife of 17 years to a successful defense attorney, Dan Larkin. Initially, the most common theory is that Jane skipped town to start over. That was more common and more possible in 1975, when there was less of a digital paper trail and everyone didn't have a camera in their pocket. But as time passes and no sign of Jane emerges, public sentiment starts to shift from disappearance to murder, and the court of public opinion places Dan Larkin firmly in its focus. The husband is always the prime suspect in something like this, right?
Landay's layered approach to unveiling the story is somewhat interesting, as he chose to reveal it through four distinct "Books". Each is told from a different perspective of someone associated with the case or the family. Book 1 begins during present day, and is told from the point of view of an author, Phil Solomon, who is a high school friend of Jeff Larkin, the middle child in the Larkin family. Solomon is suffering from writer's block, and when he reconnects with Jeff out of the blue, he has the idea to use the Jane Larkin case as the basis for a novel. That present-day perspective allows us to get a sense of the current family dynamic, and we uncover the basic details of the days immediately surrounding Jane's disappearance through the author's research into the case.
Book 2 is told from the perspective of Jane Larkin herself, going back to high school when she first met Dan. It follows their courtship and the evolution of their relationship and family, all the way through the day of her disappearance. Book 3 is then told from the point of view of Jeff Larkin, and serves as an intermediary look-in at the case about 20 years after his mother's disappearance. The novel then concludes with Book 4, told from Dan Larkin's perspective in the present day.
Landay provides several possible scenarios, but all signs continue to point to Dan Larkin, who steadfastly proclaims his innocence. And while the circumstantial evidence continues to paint Dan in an unflattering light, there is never any physical evidence to suggest that he had anything to do with Jane's disappearance. The reader is effectively put in the mindset of the other family members, left to ponder the question of what and who to believe, and how much weight to place on purely circumstantial evidence. Dan Larkin may be an asshole, but does that make him a murderer? To assist, Landay effectively spreads the family out along that belief spectrum, planting Jane's sister Kate firmly on one end, certain of Dan's guilt, and balancing her with to the Larkin's oldest child Alex on the other, who believes his father is innocent. Jeff and his sister Miranda fall somewhere in the middle and waver throughout, just you likely will, Dear Reader.
It's a quick a satisfying read, and while it didn't rise to the level of quality of Defending Jacob for me, I still enjoyed it.