Along the Indigo by Elsie Chapman
Young Adult
Published: March 20, 2018. Amulet Books.
Sixteen-year-old Marsden Eldridge resides in a town called Glory – but don’t let the name fool you. The town itself is one of corruption, illegal businesses and questionable characters. Marsden and her eight-year-old sister, Wynn, live at the local Bed & Breakfast that also operates as a brothel where their mother is employed. Despite the environment she grew up in, Marsden is headstrong, and determined to protect Wynn. To do that, they’ll need to escape Glory.
Marsden’s family owns a covert right beside the Bed & Breakfast, but it has a dark history and is avoided by the towns folk for very good reason. It acts a lure for people who feel completely lost and have no hope left, feeling this is their only way out people from all over travel to the covert to take their life. Desperate to gain the funds to escape, Marsden takes up ‘skimming’ – before reporting a found body to the police she skims it for any money. The pressure is on to save up enough money for two bus tickets before Nina (brothel owner) forces Marsden into service as well.
One day, Marsden comes across Jude Ambrose (a classmate) wandering the covert. He’s not there to commit suicide, but to find answers. His brother had taken his life in the covert and it was Marsden that found him. Jude wants to know what would push his older brother to commit such an act. Looking for these answers begin to unravel other mysteries and secrets – like the truth behind Marsden’s long dead father. The two begin a friendship, and while working to find the truth, they both must face their own personal problems.
This book has some dark and mature themes. Brothels, prostitute and suicide being the most dominant ones. The overall tone of Chapman’s novel is dreary with that mysterious undertone. The time period was difficult to pin point – I’m guessing either somewhere in the 1980’s – 1990’s.
The novels layout was also unbalanced. There would be pages of no dialogues, just inner thoughts and vivid descriptions. These are all important factors of a novel, but having all those pages with no character interaction became tiresome and would start dragging on.
Kirsten Lowe studies at Athabasca University.