Joelene Reviews: Anne Cassidy's - 'Looking for JJ'

Alice Tully almost has a normal life. Her foster mother, Rosie, is one of the warmest people she knows. Someone who finally gets her and listens to her and tries to make things better. Someone who is finally there. Alice has a boyfriend, Frankie, who she mostly can’t believe wants her. And she has a wonderfully ordinary job waiting tables at a local café.

But all of that is about to fall apart because Alice has a past. Sooner or later it is going to catch up with her. No matter how much Rosie tries to make things right, things will never be better.

Someday soon, Alice is going to have to face the past that she has been running from. She is going to have to remember January Jones; the girl that she was six years before. The girl that killed her friend on a lonely stretch of shore by the lake that also drowned a league of cats.

Looking for JJ starts with a powerful premise that exists in shades of grey. It’s centred on some difficult questions that don’t have right or wrong answers, though everyone has opinions on the matter. When a child kills another child, who is at fault? And how long must the child pay for her crime?

Looking for JJ seems to be inspired by the James Bulger murder. The media frenzy and public interest in Alice’s past bear similarities to that of Bulger’s killers, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. Around this atmosphere hovers the question: can a person ever be free from such a violent past – and should they?

Perhaps the way people react to this novel says more about them than it does about the issue, but for my part the answer is no. Alice talks about regret. We see that her counsellors have had to push her to re-join a world that she doesn’t always think she deserves. She doesn’t think it’s fair for her to be happy.

And she’s right. She doesn’t deserve to be part of this world and it isn’t fair for her to be happy. Not because of her crime: she was ten and Cassidy’s depiction of her shows a far sweeter character than Venables or Thompson.

It also shows a character that has not given the slightest consideration to her victims after the fact. Alice’s life is not tied up in her past until the past threatens to harm her. She has never given the murder in depth thought; never considers how else she might have handled things until someone asks her. A child killing another child in anger might be forgiven. That child growing up and never deeply analysing her motives, behaviour and emotions – never even shallowly analysing the pain she caused her victim’s family and the victim – cannot be forgiven.

Therein lays the core of this novel. It will be judged based on the character and morals of the reader, not the author. And, for my part, I can’t sympathise with Alice no matter how she’s changed and how kind she is now because I can’t see any sympathy in her for the people she has hurt.

Looking for JJ certainly stirs some powerful emotions. It’s the kind of issue that everyone has an opinion on, but no one will agree on the right one. Because Alice was so determined to ignore the past there was less introspection than I would have liked, but it was a satisfying read.

Looking for JJ – Anne Cassidy

Point (2004)

ISBN: 9780439977173