By Ed Meek

In her debut novel, Alina Grabowski taps into today’s zeitgeist — this is a story of compelling women who must deal with men who disappear or let them down.

Women and Children First by Alina Grabowski. Zando Books, New York, 320 pages. $16.99.

In Egypt when someone dies, relatives hire professional mourners to help the family and friends grieve. Jews sit shiva for seven days after the death of a close one. For many of us, a wake is sometimes followed by a funeral mass or some sort of a service. After that, we are expected to get on with our lives. Alina Grabowski delves into how women in a small Massachusetts town grapple with the tragic death of a high school girl.

In an interview with a local journalist, Ali Goad, in Austin, Texas, Grabowski describes her novel as exploring “how a community processes a tragedy … focusing on “the complexities of memory.” The novel is written from the points of view of ten women, each of whom gets her own chapter. The first five chapters lead up to and include the death of Lucy, a high school student; the last five chapters deal with the aftermath. Each of the women has a connection to the deceased. The novel is a kind of giant puzzle; the pieces fit together as you read along. The chapters are not only cleverly linked long short stories —  each is a mini-mystery. Who is this person and how is she linked to Lucy?

The advantage of novels with multiple points of view is that we are introduced to a number of characters rather than stuck with one voice. Although Holden Caufield of The Catcher in the Rye starts out as a very entertaining narrator, after a hundred pages, some readers become sick of him and his habit of calling everyone a phony. On the other hand, multiple points of view let us pick and choose the characters we are drawn to. Grabowski is a talented enough writer to take powerful advantage of that set-up; she creates the voices of a range of women, from teenagers to forty-something moms. She is more convincing when depicting teens and young women than older females.

Grabowski says that, although the novel focuses on a mystery, it is “primarily literary fiction.” The emphasis is on the revelation of character, not plot. “Great character makes great fiction,” pointed out writer Bill Kittredge, and Grabowski is skilled at creating intriguing characters. That said, her attempts to detail realistic psychological portraits at times undercuts what might have been satisfying narrative climaxes. Her commitment to probing character means that she backs away from her figures taking actions or being acted upon — they are absorbing, but what happens to them is a letdown.

My favorite voice is Mona, a caustic thirty-year-old who is living in the house her mother left her and working in a bar. She has great lines like: “If only I could look at everything in life and know its interior contents. I would have dated significantly fewer musicians.” Another strong character, Marina, describing a high school girl, observes, “She smiles with the innocent menace teenage girls have been perfecting for centuries. What an age! To be so convinced of your allure and so ignorant of its consequences.” Grabowski’s novel is filled with sharp social perceptions: Maureen, the principal of the high school comments,” But a girl and a child are not the same. A child is a pet. A girl is prey.”

An embarrassing viral video invited Lucy to take risks she might not otherwise have engaged in. Each of the story’s characters react differently to Lucy’s death. Many are trying to escape the problems that contributed to the tragedy. Two high school mates of Lucy’s literally run away from the situation, while Lucy’s mother doesn’t want to face or even find out what really happened.

The title of Grabowski’s promising debut novel is, of course, an ironic reference to the Titanic. Here’s the book’s epigraph: “The only reason they say “‘Women and children first”’ is to test the strength of the lifeboats.” —Unknown. Women and Children First taps into today’s zeitgeist: it is filled with compelling women who are fighting not to go under.

Ed Meek is the author of High Tide (poems) and Luck (short stories).