What I Had Before I Had You

Recently divorced, Olivia Reed takes her children to visit her Jersey Shore hometown before they start their new life in New York City. Karen White's well-paced reading adds to the misty feeling as the trip to the beach unleashes Olivia's memories of her 15-year-old self and the summer she discovered the truth about her parents and her own sometimes strange behavior. White transitions smoothly between the adult and teen Olivia, altering her intonations to reflect the character's stage of life. Bipolar disorder is central to this family story, and White's sensitive performance captures a wide range of moods as Olivia, her mother, and her son each battle his or her own version of the disease. Listeners will remember Olivia's coming-of-age story long after they've heard the last paragraph. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine


Olivia Reed left Ocean Vista when she was 15. Now, 20 years later, she returns with her two children and finally confronts her past. Narrator Karen White tellis this psychologically intense story in Olivia's voice, ambling between the past and the present. Olivia's return to her childhood home finds her distracted by memories, so she fails to notice when her 9-year-old son, Daniel, disappears. As she waits impatiently for the police to find him, her mind travels back to the summer of 1987, reliving the events that led to her running away. White's narrator voice is neutral while her Jersey accent in dialogue gives characters personality. Tone and pace are uniform, making past and present weave themselves into a seamless tapestry. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

Starred review from October 14, 2013
The “you” in the title of this psychological mystery debut refers to children, not partners. In Olivia Reed’s case, what her mother Myla had before she had her were stillborn twins, infant ghosts she’s told will follow her through life. But ghosts take different forms as the novel unfolds: are they spirits of dead children, as professional “psychic” Myla insists? Or are they the teenage girls that Olivia begins to “see” when she is 15, believing herself the inheritor of her mother’s gift? Are they dead souls come of age, her living sisters, or mad hallucinations? The answers shift as the narrative switches back and forth between the summer of 1987, when Olivia was an adolescent, and the present, when she’s traveling with her two children, Daniel and Carrie, after her divorce and revisits her hometown of Ocean Vista, N.J. In this haunted place, “the locus of guilt,” she loses nine-year-old Daniel, who is bipolar, on the beach. His disappearance drives the narrative forward, but what’s more captivating is Olivia’s relationship with her beautiful, unbalanced mother and its parallels with her relationship with Carrie, as well as Olivia’s ruminations on the meanings of mental illness. “What I had before I had you” are hidden pasts, leaving indelible traces. Depth of insight, dreamy prose, and an engrossing storyline mark this wonderful debut.