Book Summary and Reviews of Before You Knew My Name by Jacqueline Bublitz

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JHSiess

Heartbreakingly Tragic, Yet Life-Affirming Featuring Characters Readers will Long Remember
Author Jacqueline Bublitz wrote Before You Knew My Name, her debut novel, after spending a summer in New York City where she "hung around morgues and the dark corners of city parks (and the human psyche) far too often." Her manuscript was rejected many times during a more than five-year journey to publication, but the book is now receiving stellar reviews and numerous awards.

Bublitz says she drafted the ending of the book first, and continued penning the narrative in reverse chronological order, which made sense because on the first page she reveals that " our narrator has not survived." She crafted the book's propulsive opening later -- it came to her "really strongly" when she had become "intimately acquainted with Alice Lee, one of our two storytellers in the book, so intimately connected to her voice." She kept hearing, "If I tell you my story . . . and it wouldn't leave me alone," so she sat down and wrote the opening in just two or three minutes.

The second narrator is Ruby Jones, who arrives in New York City from Melbourne on the same day as Alice arrives from the Midwest. Ruby is twice Alice's age -- 36. "She knows what she's getting away from but she doesn't know what she's going to." She chose New York from an "if I can make it there" unrealistic, from Bublitz's perspective, outlook. She's "a bit of a romantic and a hot mess as well." She's escaping a toxic romantic relationship -- her lover is engaged to marry another woman but continues his dalliance with her as she hopes against hope that he will finally choose her. Bublitz says "she's absolutely aimless and she knows it," and while jogging early one morning in New York, she discovers Alice's body.

Bublitz was inspired by an actual case in Melbourne. A young woman was chased into the Tenant Gardens around 5:00 a.m. and murdered in an area that was considered safe. "I could identify with this young woman," Bublitz says. Her body was discovered by a jogger. A jogger herself, Bublitz could not stop wondering, "What if that had been me? I could not get that trauma out of that mind." She researched the impact upon people who happen upon bodies under similar circumstances, but she could only locate one archived article discussing how a gentleman was so effected by the experience that he returned to the scene every year to commemorate the victim's death. That's when Bublitz knew she was "on to something" because no one had ever told the story of the connection between the person who found the body and the victim. She felt she could craft the “very human” tale.

She tells the story beautifully. From the very first page, when Alice begins relating her experiences, Bublitz endears readers to the dead girl who came to New York in search of a fresh start after enduring poverty, the death of her mother, being foisted on various relatives, and, eventually, an inappropriate relationship with one of her teachers. When he realizes how reckless and potentially destructive his behavior has been, Alice flees. She boards a bus from Milwaukee to New York City, taking with her a small amount of cash and his cherished antique camera. It is a Leica from the 1930s that belonged to his mother and she steals it from him because she knows losing it will cause him pain. “I am a survivor. I will turn eighteen years old tomorrow, and I am leaving on my own terms. Nothing – no one – can hold me back now,” she declares.

Alice finds a room for rent in the home of an older man named Noah. She has no job and her money won’t last long, but she works out an arrangement with Noah, who is clearly lonely. Is he a kind-hearted person who feels genuine fondness for Alice and wants to help and protect her by providing her a safe place to stay? Or is he a predator? Alice enjoys living in his beautiful apartment and working for him in exchange for room and board. Their arrangement ensures she can remain there. She walks and walks, learning her way around the city and snapping photographs, and begins to believe that perhaps dreams can come true. But her life ends abruptly and violently. Senselessly. Alice explains that a man murdered her in the park by the river. Is Noah her killer? Readers will find themselves hoping Noah is the kind-hearted man he initially appears to be, and not a cold-blooded murderer.

Simultaneously, Ruby, who is “approximately three years past pretty,” drinks heavily when she first arrives in New York. She stays in the dreary little room she has rented, staring at the ceiling, considering the choices she has made and her feelings for Ash, the man she loves more than she respects herself. She knew he was planning to marry another woman when she got involved with him, but believed that over time he would change his mind. He didn’t. So she escaped to New York for a sabbatical. After she wallows for a week, she finally decides to get up and moving, her anger inspiring her to go for a jog even though it is raining. She feels better, realizing “there is a whole world outside” the brick walls of the apartment building, and “she’s finally ready to crash her way through.”

But as Ruby approaches the marina, she steps on a plastic object – it is round and black, and now shattered. She notices something on the rocks, and quickly realizes she is looking at fingernails and blond hair. Comprehending that she has happened upon the body of a young woman, she summons help. Indeed, she has found Alice’s mangled body. “Ruby Jones is my only witness,” Alice explains. From the waterfront path, Ruby can’t get to Alice, but Alice is able to “make my way to her” but is dismayed to find that Ruby “can only see the husk of me, left down on the rocks.” But her spirit has aligned with and will remain with Ruby as the police search for Alice’s killer and a traumatized Ruby tries to understand the ways in which her life is forever changed that morning.

Before You Knew My Name is a unique and inventive tale, related from the perspective of a young woman whose life ends tragically and wants justice because she has been robbed of the future she was just beginning to envision and create for herself. “I really fought hard to stay in my body. I tried my best, but I just couldn’t hold on. I did not want to die.” At first, the police are unable to identify Alice because she had no wallet or form of identification with her, so she becomes yet another “Jane Doe” whose plight will fade from the headlines quickly. The media dubs her “Riverside Jane” but she wants to be identified so that she can be remembered and mourned by her best friend back at home, and her killer can be prevented from murdering again, even though she acknowledges that when the man who murdered her is identified, “he’ll be the one they want to now, the one who takes over the narrative.” When no one comes to the morgue to claim her body, she fears no one will care about her because she will be classified as “the wrong kind of victim.” Meaning, the kind who remain invisible. Alice looks to Ruby to ensure that she is not forgotten, whispering to Ruby, “I’m Alice,” again and again. But Ruby cannot hear her over the din of the city noises.

Ruby recognizes that she can never go back to being the woman she was before that morning. The media reports that Alice’s body was discovered by a jogger, but “why did they never say what happened to the jogger after that?” She wants to help. She wonders why only some victims’ stories are deemed worthy of being told. She can’t stop thinking about Alice; she feels connected to her. She seeks out other “finders of the dead” and discovers a small group who call themselves the Death Club. Led by a mortician, the members include Josh, who survived a near-death experience and suffers from survivor’s guilt, and a grieving mother. They are an eclectic and fascinating group of supporting characters who reveal their own tragic stories and the personal demons they are striving to overcome. Their ponderings about death are absorbing.

Fortunately, the detective assigned to Alice’s case is seasoned, and determined to solve it. As Alice remains beside Ruby, Bublitz takes readers on their journey of discovery. It is poignant, frequently heartbreaking, and powerful as a result of the achingly simple yet captivating way in which Bublitz describes Ruby’s encounters with the members of the Death Club, the relationships she forms with them, and the myriad ways in which she grows and matures, unwilling to be aimless any longer. At the center of the story is a cleverly-imagined mystery and the believable procedural tale about how Detective O’Bryne follows sometimes obscure clues that would be missed by a less diligent investigator.

But the real power of Before You Know My Name is the way in which Bublitz examines female empowerment from the perspectives of her two female protagonists. As noted, for Alice, it is about being valued. Even though her life was short, she wants to ensure that it was not without merit and meaning, and that she will be remembered as a person who mattered. The same things are important to Ruby, but from the perspective of her continuing life. Bublitz makes a strong statement about the importance of safety to women in New York City, in particular, but wherever they find themselves, and the vast power imbalance that still leaves women vulnerable and too often victimized.

Bublitz explores, from a decidedly feminist and fresh vantage point, the often surprising and frequently profound ways in which people’s lives intersect and become intertwined, and how those connections impact not just emotions, but decision-making, and shape the future. She also offers a sly indictment of the ways in which the media sensationalize crime, especially crimes against women. And the shamefully fleeting and superficial attention paid to cases that lack “legs,” meaning the ones the public grows tired of hearing about because they are not flashy or titillating enough to sustain interest from an industry focused on soundbites rather than substance. Bublitz makes clear that Alice’s killer should never overtake the narrative or overshadow the significance of the life he stole from her. Bublitz also challenges readers to consider their beliefs about the afterlife. Could those nudges and urgings we all feel emanate from spirits of the dead who remain with us and, as Alice struggles to communicate with Ruby, whisper to us?

Before You Knew My Name is a richly emotional, riveting, and thought-provoking debut from a talented and promising new thriller writer. It is a hauntingly tragic, yet life-affirming story of two women readers will not soon forget. And it is one of the best books of 2022.

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader's Copy of the book.