The Next Time You See Me

The Next Time You See Me is the debut novel of Holly Goddard Jones. It centres around a grim discovery in the conservative town of Roma, Kentucky, and how this affects the three central characters, Emily Houchens, Susanna Mitchell and Wyatt Powell.

The novel deals with life in a small town and how it impacts on different people; how those who adhere to the status quo fear those who don’t, and the cruelty of being bullied, judged or ignored.

Teenage outcast Emily resorts to solitary walks to escape her well-meaning family and cruel peers. She retreats into a fantasy world, where her real-life tormentor, all-round ‘golden boy’ Christopher Sheldon, is her ally and love interest. During one of her daily rambles, she discovers a body, carelessly hidden in a deserted gully.

Meanwhile, Emily’s teacher, Susanna Mitchell, is searching for her sister, Ronnie, who has vanished. Susanna is disillusioned with Roma, where she is pressured by the principal to give special dispensation to the children of the great and powerful, and disapproved of by her husband, Dale, for drinking and for her association with the unconventional Ronnie.

As she sinks beneath her fears for her sister and the temptation to stray, with detective Tony Joyce, she is kept afloat only by her love for her infant daughter and by the remnants of compassion she retains for the people around her.

It is in the depiction of middle-aged factory worker, Wyatt Powell, that Goddard Jones shows her hand as a writer. Wyatt has been marginalised and alienated. He is disregarded by everyone and particularly by his handsome colleague, Sam, who bullies him mercilessly. At the beginning of the book, his only companion is his dog, but there is hope for Wyatt when he meets kindly nurse, Sarah. However, as the book goes on, it becomes clear that Wyatt harbours a sinister secret related to the body and that it may be too late for him to be saved. Though Emily and Wyatt never meet, their lives are interconnected, in that Wyatt is a dark shadow of what Emily may become if she does not learn to adapt. Her disconnection from reality is beginning to show in the clinical interest she exhibits upon finding the body. Similarly, Sam is a chilling presentiment of what Emily’s crush on Christopher may become. Christopher acts out his role as the most popular boy in school and represses his interest in Emily by singling her out for abuse. In the two teenagers, Christopher and Emily, we see that their characters have not fully-formed and that there is hope for redemption.

Ronnie is conspicuous in her absence from the present-day narrative. We do, however, encounter her in the memories of the other characters.

As the plot progresses it becomes clear that she is not coming home and that her disappearance is tragically linked with Emily’s find. Though she meets a sad demise, her character shows that despite being shunned we can care about others, and though some lives may be short and without apparent purpose, they can burn bright and touch others.

In The Next Time You See Me, Goddard Jones depicts a range of empathetic people; from young to old, from pariah to conformist. The strength of the characters, and the pace of the plot, make for a page-turner. From a memory Goddard Jones had of a homicide in her own sleepy town, she has woven a believable fictional world and produced a stunning debut.