“Before and After” is a mystery, a domestic drama and a gripping portrait of a family at the breaking point. Carolyn and her husband, Ben, can’t believe their son, Jacob, is guilty, even as the evidence builds up; but as they move helplessly through the days that follow his disappearance, they are forced to grapple with unthinkable possibilities. Can justice be disentangled from love? Neither can spare much thought for their daughter, Judith, who is wrestling with her own memories of a secretive, sometimes puzzling brother.
Brown moves gracefully from husband to wife to daughter in this absorbing book, changing voices with each chapter so that we approach the thicket of emotions at the heart of the family from shifting perspectives. By the end the who-dunit has been solved, but a deeper mystery remains locked in a past to which nobody in the family has full access. Brown’s storytelling is vivid and cinematic, and her sense of psychological drama is powerful-all of which makes it no surprise to learn that the book has been optioned for a movie starring Meryl Streep.
