By Jessica Zhu Yunjie (24A01E)
Raffles Reads is a collaboration between Raffles Press and Times Reads which aims to promote a reading culture among Singaporean students.
Rating: 4.5/5
Make a list of everything that terrifies you. That’s me.
This line (or rather, text message) gives us a first taste of the darkness revolving around a seemingly isolated case of sexual assault—later uncovered to be caught deep in a web of organised crime.
The horror aspect of After That Night lies not within the fictional eldritch beasts with too many eyes and razor sharp teeth, but in the unassumingly normal-looking people delighting in all sorts of depravity. Perpetrators of its crimes are so realistically crafted that you’ll be able to find traces of them in those around you; it’s true that monsters walk amongst us, but the fact that they’re wearing human faces is far more terrifying.
As the latest book in the Will Trent series (which has inspired a show on ABC), the characterisation is easy enough to follow that it can be read as a stand-alone. After all, the charm in mystery novels has always been in solving separate cases in each book. The best part? The characters certainly don’t lack depth by any means!
Backstories are naturally woven into the plot as our protagonists, Sara Linton and Will Trent, launch into investigation of the aforementioned sexual assault case. The former works as a doctor who was responsible for treating the victim, while the latter is a detective. The two seem like an unlikely pair at first, but you’ll find that their teasing banter provides a much needed reprieve from the darker topics which the novel focuses on.
Details are inserted at appropriate times as plot devices are revealed bit by bit, helping to convey the feeling that the reader is gradually learning more about each character as you would establish connections with people in real life. This was particularly effective with Sara, as the nature of this crime has dredged up memories of her past that she’d much rather forget.
Though ambitious with the range of themes the book covers, it has been well executed enough that it doesn’t feel cheap. Author Karin Slaughter brings new, unheard perspectives to the table which push and shove at boundaries simply because we avoid these issues so much that it discomforts us to hear them addressed at length.
The misogyny experienced by victims of sexual assault is clearly demonstrated through their common experience of victim blaming. None are strangers to questions such as ‘What were you wearing?’ and ‘Did you send the wrong signals?’ Worse still are the excuses made to justify their suffering, in which their assault was referred to as a “character-building exercise”.
Even amongst victims of a similar crime, the way their cases get handled vary depending on their social standing, such as that of ethnicity and sexuality. Sara is more privileged as a white woman with a high-income job, hence her word was taken more seriously and her case was closed swiftly. That same courtesy was not extended to a woman of colour, who was instead accused of lying by the very detective in charge of investigating her case.
It is especially eye-opening when the book points out that solidarity between victims does not always hold true. As Sara puts it, it’s “not the sisterhood you’d think it is”. Due to the very fact that these victims have suffered similar fates, they know exactly where to strike one another for it to hurt the most.
Attention is also drawn to the ‘ideal’ victim hierarchy, in which only those who generate the most sympathy from society are deemed ‘valid’. They typically have to fulfil the ‘damsel in distress’ stereotype.
But if the victim lashes out at others as a trauma response? She’s seen as a ‘bad’ victim. After all,
People had endless amounts of compassion for women who were the right kind of victim — sympathetic, stoic, slightly tragic. Britt was too angry, too cruel, for anyone to feel anything but a sense of karma that she was getting what was coming to her.
Filled with crude descriptions, the book can get extremely heavy to read at times. However, this precisely does justice to the topics covered as nothing is sugar-coated to make it easier to swallow.
Furthermore, the use of professional medical terminology effectively highlights the biological reactions that victims go through. For example, it is explained why many freeze out of shock, debunking the myth that victims simply didn’t ‘fight hard enough’.
This book is unique in exploring the guilt that victims carry: many avoid reporting to the police entirely because they’re afraid of how it’ll affect those around them. Once the truth is out, it inevitably changes people’s perceptions of them—reducing their identity to just that; a victim of sexual assault. They are forced to carry that stigma with them for life, forever bearing an asterisk by their name.
…I don’t want to be defined by one of the worst things that ever happened to me.
Diversity isn’t included simply for the sake of it either. Instead, what makes each character unique is incorporated closely into the tiniest details of their lives. No spectacles are made out of their differences; these character traits are handled with the respect needed for proper representation.
Will, for example, has dyslexia—making word play like puns difficult to comprehend. Instead of being written as a disability which holds him back, its advantage is pointed out: it helps him see things a different way, and these unconventional insights he gains from clues have definitely aided him in his investigations.
The theme of control resonates the most strongly throughout the novel. Almost every character is struggling with it in some shape or form, be it overprotective parenting or as their armour to cover up insecurities. The most gut-wrenching of all was the loss of bodily autonomy:
One of you will spend the rest of your life trying to forget it. The other will spend the rest of his life deriving pleasure from the memory.
Overall, the book starts off slow but gradually picks up its pace as the investigation unfolds. It was especially impossible to put down nearing its ending, which provided a satisfying conclusion; all loose ends tied.
Nonetheless, the plot is not without its flaws. Sara seems to have a remarkable amount of time and flexibility to commit to this investigation despite her full-time job. The investigation also goes a little too smoothly as Will constantly lucks out with his guesses from vague clues.
There is also a lot of heavy introspection due to how personal the case is to Sara. Though this writer found the thought process extremely meaningful due to its realism, the suspense comes much later in the story, which is rather atypical for crime fiction.
Ultimately, After That Night is an important read that showcases the lens through which much of the world views and treats women who are raped. We are not spared the details, and aptly so—these victims have already been silenced for far too long.
If you find yourself drawn to exploring new perspectives and have the stomach for gory details, do give this book a read! This writer assures you that it’ll be worth your while.
