What She Left by T. R. Richmond

Hi, everyone! This is my second post today as part of the blog tour for T. R. Richmond's newly released debut, What She Left. You can check out the excerpt post here.

When Jeremy Cooke hears about Alice Salmon's tragic death, he is rocked to his core. Once upon a time, Cooke was very close to Alice's mother and felt a fond affinity for Alice as well. Her death can't be her end. 

And so he begins collating material on Alice - Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, texts, journal entries... anything and everything he can lay his hands on pertaining to her life and experiences. A project forms, one with an anthropological basis - a map of Alice's life. But amazingly, what begins as a bit of an obsession and refusal to say goodbye soon transforms into an investigation that could shed light on Alice's final moments. 

What She Left is a great example of storytelling through somewhat unique means. At heart, Alice's death is a mystery. But so is her life. Using letters, diary entries, and all sorts of electronic correspondence as the narrative thread, Richmond builds a tale that not only fills in the gaps of Alice's story, but of her mother's, her friends', and Cooke's as well.

The various pieces form chapters of a sort. Chapters that are short enough to keep the story moving at a fairly quick pace. And yet, though this is described as a thriller and though there is - as I mentioned - a mystery central to the story, the book doesn't really read like a thriller at all. Instead, it's a sort of cross between the aftermath of death and it's effects on the living and a commentary on social media and the electronic stamp one leaves behind these days. (As well as the notion that not all of a person's public facade can truly be trusted.)

Richmond's debut is a fascinating one that will appeal to readers who enjoy unreliable narrators, epistolary novels, and psychological suspense.

As a bonus, the publisher has put together two extras for readers: Alice's Facebook page and Professor Cooke's Tumblr.

What She Left is out now from Michael Joseph.

What She Left by T. R. Richmond - Excerpt

Hello, everyone! Today I'm part of the blog tour for T. R. Richmond's debut thriller, What She Left, which released just last week. And as part of the tour I've got a little treat for you - an excerpt from the book.

I'll be following up later today with a review, but for now here's a bit about the book from Goodreads to get you started:

Gone doesn't mean forgotten.

When Alice Salmon died last year, the ripples were felt in the news, on the internet, and in the hearts of those who knew her best.

But the person who knows her most intimately isn't family or a friend. Dr Jeremy Cook is an academic whose life has become about piecing together Alice's existence in all its flawed and truthful reality.

For Cooke, faithfully recreating Alice's life - through her diaries, emails and anything using her voice - is all-consuming. He does not know how deep his search will take him, or the shocking nature of what he will uncover.

And now for the excerpt!

Prologue

Article in the Arts Council magazine, 

The Operative Word, 2001 

What’s in a name? That’s the question we asked teenagers to answer in 1,000 words for this year’s New Talent competition. Here’s the winning entry from fifteen-year-old Alice Salmon. 

My name is Alice.

I could leave it there. I know what I mean by that. I’m me, Alice Salmon. Tall, average-looking, big feet, hair that goes wavy at the mere mention of water, a bit of a worry bear. A massive music fan, a proper bookworm, loves being outdoors, though dies at the sight of a spider. 

Mostly it’s Alice people call me, although occasionally I’m Al or Aly or Lissa, the last one of which for the record I hate. When I was a kid I used to have squillions of nicknames like Ali Baba and Ice and, my favourite of all, especially when my dad called me it, Ace. 

My uncle calls me Celia, which is an anagram of Alice, although I get the word ‘anagram’ muddled up with ‘anachronism’. ‘That’s what I am,’ my dad always says if anyone says ‘anachronism’, although the word ‘dad’ is actually a palindrome. I learnt that yesterday. 

I like knowing this stuff, even if my best friend Megan says I sound as if I’ve swallowed a dictionary. It’s not that I like showing off, but you’ve got to if you’re going to study English. If I get the grades, I’d love to go to Exeter or Liverpool, but as long as it’s a long way from Corby I don’t mind, although wherever you go there are probably people trying to get away from there. I’ll be honest, I can’t wait to move out; my mum’s constantly poking her nose into my business. She reckons it’s because she cares, but it’s not fair it’s me who suffers because she’s paranoid. I obviously put that last line in after she read this and she’ll never see it because I’m bound not to win. 

Maybe what’s in my name is the music I like (have listened to ‘Dancing in the Moonlight’ about 400 times today) or the TV I watch (you’re looking at the world’s biggest Dawson fan) or my friends or the diary I keep? Maybe it’s the bits of all of that stuff I can remember, which isn’t much because my memory’s lousy. 

Perhaps it’s my family? My mum and dad and brother who used to called me ‘a lice’ or ‘Mice’ or ‘Malice’ as if it was the funniest joke ever cracked in the history of the world. Maybe it’ll be my kids, not that I’m going to have any, no thank you: all that yuck and puke and poo. I haven’t even got a boyfriend, although if Mr DiCaprio is reading this, I am free on Friday . . . 

‘You’ll change your mind,’ Mum says about the babies, but she said that about asparagus and I haven’t. 

Perhaps it’s the things I plan to do, like travel, or the nicest thing I’ve already done, which hands down was that day’s volunteering at the deaf place (can you see my halo shining?) or possibly the worst (no way am I fessing up to that!). 

I could tell you about my best day ever. That’s a toughie, maybe it was when Meg and I went to see Enrique Iglesias or I met J. K. Rowling or my gramps took me on that surprise birthday picnic, but the thing about ‘ever’ is that it only takes you up to now, and tomorrow can be better so I ought to talk about ‘so far’ rather than ‘ever’. 

There again, sometimes you can explain what an object is by pretending not to talk about it (I’ve just googled that, it’s ‘apophasis’) so maybe what’s in my name are the things I could be doing instead of this, like my maths homework or taking Mr Woof for a walk. 

I used to wish more famous people were called Alice. Not, like, mega famous because then whenever anyone said it, it would be them who everyone thought of – like if you’re called Britney or Cherie – but semi famous. There’s Alice Cooper but he’s a man and that’s not even his real name. There’s Alice in Wonderland, too, which used to get quoted at me a lot, stuff like being curiouser and curiouser, though my favourite line was always the one about not being able to explain yourself because it’s not actually yourself you see, even if I never understood it. 

I suppose I am what I’m writing here, too, which might be rubbish. I asked my mum to read this – only to check the spelling – and she said it was great, even if the first and last lines did make me sound like an alcoholic, but that’s just how she interpreted it. 

Mum said there were a few bits I should reconsider, but there’s no point submitting it if it’s lies, although I did agree to knock out the text speak and swear words and there were lots of them in the first draft (this is the seventh!). I also use too many brackets and exclamation marks but they’re staying in, otherwise (again) this wouldn’t be me. 

‘At times it terrifies me how much we are alike,’ Mum said after she read it. Well, she’s not the only one. Some days, even though she tries to hide it, she mopes around the house like the world’s about to end. (Yes, this line went in after she vetted it, too – talk about the thought police!) 

Dad reckons I must have been dropped on my head as a baby, because me and him have hardly anything in common, although we both love salmon, which is funny because you could say that makes us cannibals. 

My name is Alice Salmon. Five words out of my 1,000. I hope I’m more than 200 times those five words. Even if not now, I hope one day I will be. 

I will finish this now and stand up and ask myself who I am. I do that a lot. I’ll look in the mirror. Reassure myself, scare myself, like myself, hate myself. 

My name is Alice Salmon.