Elle Marr. The Alone Time. Thomas & Mercer, 2024.

We experience terrible things, and in hindsight, our paths seem to drive us toward our individual narrow valleys where we either push through to reach the open air of the other side, or we become stuck forever pressed at all angles by our faults and sheer bad luck. (1722)

The Alone Time is not about what the reader might think it means. It is not about someone demanding his or her “space.” It is about a time when the protagonists and narrators of the novel were alone, apart from the rest of the world. The four members of the Seng family, father Henry, mother Janet, and daughters Fiona and Violet, were flying together in a small plane when it crashed in the wilderness of Washington State.

For much of the tale, the reader is led to believe the crash happened in Oregon, but we learn that the location was actually in the Olympic National Park. I mention that detail only to illustrate how readers learn details in the story—very gradually and not in a linear manner.

The novel unfolds the way many contemporary works of fiction do. Chapters are narrated by different characters, in this case the four members of the Seng family. Most are told by the two sisters, now adults of thirty-eight and thirty-two. The elder of the two, Fiona, is a sculptor who appears to be on the threshold of success in the art world. Violet, the younger, has led a somewhat aimless existence, currently enrolled in college for the third time. Even so, she is mulling the pros and cons of dropping out again.

The parents were both lost in or shortly after the crash. The chapters from their point of view are flashbacks from twenty-five years before leading up to the crash and some of the drama that happened after the crash in the remote forest. The two girls were rescued after twelve weeks; somehow they survived. At the ages of thirteen and seven, they became media darlings for a while and were raised by an aunt. Even twenty-five years later, some critics say that Fiona’s artwork would not have sold at all if it had not been for her well-known backstory. As it is, Fiona uses her sculpting as a way to heal and overcome her trauma.

Like the other Marr tale we have reviewed here, there is much intrafamily conflict. In this case it is more pedestrian than criminal. Henry has been unfaithful, appears to regret it, and wants to make it up to Janet by taking the family on vacation from Southern California to Canada. Thirteen-year-old Fiona figures out enough of what it going on. Violet would probably have been innocent of everything except that one time she answers a phone call for her father from a woman named Alicia.

This in itself has the potential for a lively story. But other things complicate the plot even more. Because Violet has been drifting and at times exploiting her sister’s concern for her, the two sisters have not had much to do with each other for the last six years. They are trying to reconnect, though both have some reservations.

Meanwhile, after twenty-five years, the woman who claims to have been Henry’s mistress comes forward. She is being interviewed on many television talk shows. The timing seems more than mere coincidence since Fiona is beginning to get serious attention in the art world and is having her first solo exhibit. The woman seems to be in it to get attention and make the sisters look bad, even suggesting that they were somehow responsible for their parents’ deaths. And her name is Geri, not Alicia.

Also there is the documentary filmmaker Daley. He at first seems genuinely interested in the sisters’ story and wants to tell their side of it. They trust him at first until they see him with Geri and begin to realize he is more interested in sensationalism than truth.

Of course, the whole time, the reader is wondering what is the truth anyhow?

Marr knows how to pace a story well. Along with the current art world and college drama of the two sisters, we get chapters telling the parents’ stories while trying to survive in the wilderness as winter is coming on. We know that Janet and Henry really do not completely trust each other, but they do want to survive and they need each other for that.

Both have some background which could help them survive. Each has relatives who know traditional Chinese medicine, so they know something of what wild herbs and plants are edible and what ones are not. Henry was a Marine who served in Iraq in Desert Shield (1990-1991). He admits to having PTSD as a result. However, we will also learn that he received a dishonorable discharge. Usually victims of PTSD get a medical discharge or an honorable discharge. There is clearly something else going on here. But he also knows how to hunt and forage. There is chance they can survive if they can overcome both their inner and interpersonal conflicts. There is also at least a suggestion through this idea that perhaps the sisters each in her own way are suffering from some kind of PTSD after their wilderness ordeal,

By the way, Henry keeps saying he needs to protect the girls from wolves. While wild wolves do roam in parts of the mountains of the American West, the last wolf spotted in the Olympics was in 1935. Also the trip was planned to end in Calgary, but where the plane crashes suggests Henry was headed towards British Columbia. What is going on here?

There is a lot going on. The plot takes the reader step by step to an intense climax. But even at the end, loose ends are still floating around—which is truly more realistic. Does anyone know what really happened? As in real life, no one knows all the details, but we can figure enough to move on and perhaps look forward to what the future may hand us.

N.B.: The reference in the quotation is a Kindle location, not a page number.