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Writer's pictureGreg Barlin

The Night We Lost Him

Updated: Oct 7

by Laura Dave ★★★★

cover art for In the Lives of Puppets

Laura Dave is not a new author, but she feels that way to many. After publishing several novels to lukewarm reception, she caught lightning in a bottle in 2021 with The Last Thing He Told Me. That book currently has over 150,000 ratings on Amazon (her next closest novel has 16,000). Its popularity led to a television adaptation on Apple TV+, and likely was a life-changer for Dave as an author. After a breakout success like that, the follow-up novel is always a challenge. Expectations are higher, publisher pressure has increased, and it's hard to replicate that success, especially when it hadn't happened on several prior tries. I enjoyed The Last Thing He Told Me -- in fact, I read it in a single afternoon by the pool -- but I wasn't as enamored with the book as many of Laura's legion of fans. It was good and entertaining, but flawed, and so as I started The Night We Lost Him, I didn't have any type of inflated expectations.


Our main character and narrator is Nora Noone, who is living in New York and working to move past the loss of her father, who had fallen to his death from the cliffs near his California coastal home a month prior. When her estranged half-brother Sam shows up unannounced to a work site and explains he believes there was foul play involved, Nora can't shake the feeling that he may be right. He leaves her with a plane ticket and a request for a favor: join him on a quick trip to California to meet with the caretaker of the property and the local police and "see what (they) can figure out about what exactly happened that night."


Of course, fresh eyes on the facts of the case identify a few small holes that don't make it as open-and-shut as the local police believed it to be, and Nora and Sam begin to gradually track down information that might explain their father's somewhat erratic behavior in the days and weeks leading up to his death and ideally point them in the direction of the person or people who may have been at his home the night of his death.


While the primary storyline follows Nora and Sam's quest for clues, Dave also sprinkles in flashbacks over the course of Liam's life and his relationship with Cordelia "Cory" Ryan. When they first meet in high school, Liam is immediately ensorcelled by her:


"She smiled at him, her eyes shining. It wasn't just that she was beautiful, though she was beautiful. But it was more than that when she looked at him with those eyes. She was so familiar to him. So present. Liam had never seen her before, and suddenly he felt like he'd never not seen her."


Cory is a writer, an artist, and despite being two years Liam's junior, she seems to posses an inner poise and self-assuredness far beyond her years. She also seems to be immune to Liam's charms, should they interfere with the north star vision she has for her life. The two begin a conventional relationship that turns unconventional when Liam leaves for college, and remains that way for decades after.


The Liam and Cory chapters were among the best and the worst of the novel for me. Dave has a gift for capturing the romantic connection between two people, but Cory's steadfast refusal to fully commit to Liam, even after decades of devotion to her, left me frustrated. I wanted Liam to give up, or Cory to give in. It's a gender reversal from what has often been depicted in books and films: the woebegone woman, pining for a man who won't choose her. We hate the philandering man; we sympathize with and ache for the woman. Dave turns that on its head, but did so in a way where I ended up not caring for either character.


The plot of the novel also leads to some endearing connection points between half-siblings Nora and Sam, who are nearly strangers at the start of the novel (it had been five years since Nora had last seen Sam). As they continue to spend time together investigating Liam's death, they begin to learn about each other and let down their guards, and we get to watch a familial friendship form before our eyes. It's sweet and satisfying, especially after the frustration of Liam and Cory.


While the story is generally captivating, it lacks the breakneck page-turning momentum of The Last Thing He Told Me. Dave, however, does manage to tie together the threads of the story in a tidy and mostly satisfying bow by the end. Setting aside Cory's interminable stubbornness, I enjoyed most of the story, and while it lacked a wow factor, it was ultimately more gratifying than not.


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