All That Is Mine I Carry with Me by William Landay

Published by Bantam on March 7, 2023

Guilt is often ambiguous. If guilt were always certain, there would be no drama in trials. William Landay sustains ambiguity throughout All That Is Mine I Carry with Me, creating a story that, until the final pages, keeps the reader guessing.

The story is narrated by several characters, starting with Philip Solomon. Solomon’s childhood friend, Jeff Larkin, gets together with Solomon in 2015. Jeff and Philip bonded in their childhood over shared knowledge of a secret involving Jeff’s family. Later, in 1975, Jeff's mother disappeared.

Jeff tells Philip that his father, Dan Larkin, has Alzheimer’s. Dan is in the care of Jeff’s sister, Miranda. Jeff refuses to speak to his father. He believes his father murdered his mother. Philip decides there might be a book in Jane Larkin's disappearance and its aftermath, so he decides to interview the family members, as well as the primary police investigator, who has since retired.

The family has been torn apart by their father’s potential guilt. It took time for Jeff to reach the conclusion that his father killed his mother. For years after he entered adulthood, Jeff battled substance abuse. He could not easily get past the failure of his most significant relationship, leaving him drunk and alone for much of his life.

Jeff’s brother Gary (like Dan, a lawyer) has always been willing to give Dan the benefit of the doubt. Miranda can’t make up her mind about her father’ guilt. Her unresolved feelings likely contributed to the severe depression that defines much of her life. Jane’s sister Kate is convinced of Dan’s guilt and no amount of ambiguity will shake that certainty or soften her fury.

The evidence against Dan is circumstantial. He had a girlfriend while he was married. He changed his tie on the day Jane disappeared. Jane’s car, abandoned at a train station, is oddly free of his fingerprints. Accusations surface about Dan’s history of sexual abuse but Dan denies them. Small clues add up to suspicion but fall well short of overcoming reasonable doubt. The police investigator is frustrated by his inability to build a stronger case against Dan but prosecutors correctly decide that charges should not be filed if they cannot be proved.

One section of the novel seems to be narrated by Jane, who begins by telling the reader that her husband killed her. The next section relieved my potential disappointment by clarifying that the reader is not getting a perspective from beyond the grave. Subsequent chapters tell the story from Jeff’s, Miranda’s, and Dan’s point of view. A shaky family is eventually torn apart by a decision, driven by Kate and reluctantly joined by two of the children, to sue Dan for wrongful death.

Did Dan kill his wife? William Landay peppers the story with information that suggests his guilt and innocence. The reader does eventually learn the apparent truth, but the bigger story is the impact of ambiguity on the lives of Jane’s family. Unresolved suspicion is destructive but so is false accusation. Only Gary seems capable of understanding that the truth can’t always be known and that life goes on even in the absence of certainty. The family’s mistake lies in the belief that the legal system is capable of resolving doubts or bringing closure. Circumstantial evidence doesn’t become any stronger by presenting it to a jury.

The wrongful death trial contributes the strongest scenes to the novel — skillful cross-examinations are the stuff from which legal thrillers are made — but the reader knows before the verdict is delivered that the opinions of strangers who hear the evidence are no better than the reader’s own opinion or those of the family members. The story builds to a careful ending that delivers a measure of justice and truth that is beyond the power of the legal system to achieve.

While the family members generally remain civil with each other (and some even maintain a relationship with Dan), the novel’s strength lies in its exploration of how suspicion and uncertainty can affect families of crime victims. All That Is Mine I Carry with Me works as a legal thriller and as family drama while illustrating the legal system’s inability to deliver the kind of peace that victims seem to expect from it.

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