Spoilers!
We all want to be heard. To be seen. And to feel we are loved, broken, as we all are. Simone St. James’ 2018 book, The Broken Girls, demonstrates how three “broken girls” weren’t actually broken at all — they were puzzle pieces waiting to be put together. Unfortunately, because of a Nazi and a ghost, their lives still traversed unspeakable hell that echoed across generations.
James’ book is told from two different time periods: Vermont in 1950 at the Idlewild school, a boarding school for so-called wayward, or broken, girls (I like to think James named it Idlewild as a fun play on words), featuring the varying perspectives of Katie, Roberta, CeCe, and Sonia; and Vermont in 2014, as Fiona tries to piece together both a.) what really happened to her sister Deb, who was murdered 20 years previously, and b.) what happened at Idlewild, and specifically to Sonia, who was murdered and unceremoniously dropped in a well, only to be discovered 64 years after the fact.
What simmers beneath these tales, and links them, is Mary Hand, the ghost of Idlewild, who was a young, broken girl, left for dead by her parents in the early 1900s because she had a baby out of wedlock and at 16. Mary and the baby were born on the property that would become Idlewild. She’s haunted the place ever since, even in Fiona’s time, and shows people unspeakable horrors. I personally think the book would have been great still without the ghost element, or even if Mary Hand was an urban legend that turned out to stem from a true case of another broken girl. But an actual ghost existing didn’t seem necessary. While Mary did add a creepy element to the book, in a book about the Ravensbrück concentration camp, Nazis, and corrupt, vile police officers, Mary almost seemed superfluous to me, despite her existence as a proper metaphor for broken, unheard girls.
What brought Katie, Roberta, CeCe, and Sonia to Idlewild is what brings all the girls to Idlewild: tragedy, and generations of parents who didn’t want to discuss it. So, send the girls off to boarding school in Vermont. Katie was nearly raped by a neighbor boy; Roberta saw her uncle, a WWII veteran, almost attempt suicide; CeCe was nearly drowned by her mother, a housemaid who was impregnated by her rich boss; and Sonia survived the Ravensbrück concentration camp and made it to America, only to be killed by a female Nazi, who was a guard at the concentration camp and happened to live in Vermont. But nobody at the boarding school cared about Sonia’s disappearance. They figured she disappeared with a boy. They moved on. But the three girls didn’t, and they essentially hatched a plan to extricate themselves from Idlewild and eventually, solve Sonia’s murder. Katie married CeCe’s half-brother, also “illegitimate,” who inherited his father’s wealth, and used that money to save Roberta and CeCe, as well as eventually buy the Idlewild property 64 years later to uncover Sonia’s body.
Meanwhile, Fiona is a journalist, daughter of a famous area journalist, as well as a murdered older sister, who is now dating a cop, Jamie. She’s pulling on the strings of Deb’s case because she’s starting to doubt if the well-connected, rich boy, Tim Christopher, did it or not. When she starts pulling, though, she learns there is another thread that links 1950 to 2014, and it’s the Creels. Jamie’s father, Garrett Creel, was the police chief of the town, and his grandfather was the police chief of the town. The grandfather is the one who ignored Sonia’s disappearance, and Garrett is the one who seems to be covering for Tim. Despite Tim actually being convicted for Deb’s murder, Fiona learns two startling facts. First, that Tim assaulted a woman a year prior, and if Tim had gone down for that, then Deb would still be alive, presumably. Worse still, Garrett helped cover it up for Tim. Secondly, Tim tried to help cover up Deb’s murder for Tim, too, even going as far as helping Tim to dump her body. All because being a police chief, with connections to people like the Christophers, conferred power and favors, and he liked that. He didn’t like that his own son, Jamie, wanted to operate a different way. Garrett tries to hush up Fiona — again, going back to this theme of keeping girls and women quiet — by strangling her to death; however, Jamie comes to her rescue and is actually shot at by his own dad (a flesh wound to the hand).
In the end, Sonia and Mary Hand get a proper burial. They are heard, finally. They are seen. And at least as it concerns Sonia, they are loved.
Admittedly, James’ book, my first book I’ve read from her, was a slow start for me. I don’t normally mind a slow burn, but for whatever reason, it took about 50 to 60 pages for me to get hooked into the meat of the story. Once I did, though, particularly with the Holocaust element and then realizing we had a corrupt police force situation going on, I was all in. When Garrett went after Fiona at the end, I was breathlessly reading, hoping she’d be okay! And I absolutely loved how fierce, despite their various traumas, the three girls were to not only survive Idlewild, but thrive and properly attend to Sonia’s murder.
This isn’t a book easily definable, but if there is a comparison to give, James’ writing reminds me of Jodi Picoult. She writes with heart, taking her time, it’s bone deep, and she’s willing to wade into tragedy so as to emerge on other side with those intangibles that make all of this worth it.
Milam's Musings 