The return of Shutterbabe

After a successful memoir, Deborah Copaken Kogan attempts her first novel — but the results aren’t quite developed

By Katie Moore
Published: December 9th, 2008 | 12:40pm

Photojournalist-turned-novelist Deborah Copaken Kogan takes on a hefty subject, that of maternal filicide, in her first novel Between Here and April. The main character, Elizabeth, a journalist and mother of two young girls, attempts to uncover the malevolent mystery surrounding the death of her childhood friend, April. As she digs around for details surrounding the demise of April’s family, her own frustrations with motherhood begin to surface.

The novel meanders into more than a few other weighty subplots: the violent trauma Elizabeth faced as a war photographer, her husband's problematic sexual requests, the challenge of marital fidelity, to name a few. And while all of these elements contribute to Elizabeth as a character, Kogan does not quite get around to getting to the bottom of any of them. One problem is uncovered but then not really examined.

Unlike Kogan's first book, Shutterbabe, which chronicles Kogan's own past life as a photographer in far-flung countries, Between Here and April isn’t quite as complete or nuanced of a story to be credible. In the end, we still don't get the feeling that Elizabeth figures anything out about what causes a misguided yet essentially still-loving mother to commit an unthinkable act, nor how she will learn to really cope with her own ups and downs of raising children. Throughout the novel there are some well-worded passages, especially in the flashbacks, but despite them, the story ultimately fails to mine its main character’s psychological depths.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
Between Here and April (Algonquin Books)
By Deborah Copaken Kogan
277 pages, $23.95