Whidbey by T Kira Madden
T Kira Madden’s debut memoir Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls put the diasporic Kanaka ʻŌiwi writer in the white, hot spotlight when it published in 2019. In one section, this coming-of-age about growing up in a privileged community as a queer, biracial child explores Madden surviving early sexual assault. Whidbey pulls from Madden’s experience, including the powerful proposition on a ferry to Whidbey Island that gives the story its initial momentum. It is the harbinger of a murder mystery that freshly upends the lives of the many impacted by one child sex offender, Calvin. But Madden widens the lens beyond queer, biracial survivor Birdie bound for secluded healing in the Puget Sound, additionally inviting us into the lives of survivor, reality star, and memoirist Linzie, and Calvin’s mother, Mary-Beth.
The careful and deliberate unspooling of these characters’ lives and the wiring of their internal worlds produces a thriller unlike any I’ve read before. This is, as described, a literary novel and it reads contemplative rather than fast-paced. The whodunnit is less important than the question of how the predator and eventual murder victim’s actions changed these people, their loved ones, and their circles. I balked at the possibility of a sympathetic reading of Calvin through his mother, but I wouldn’t use “sympathetic” to describe how any of these characters were treated. Raw and unflinching is more like it.
I came out of the experience with a more nuanced understanding of sexual assault and its highly varying and lasting impact, and our systems of incarceration, reintegration, and the hurdles survivors face when navigating the justice system. Whidbey demands that we think about the unthinkable and sit with it. I still am.