Most people do things when they're young that they regret later on in life, whether it's driving drunk after a party and taking out somebody's mail box, getting a tattoo on your face, or buying a Haircut One Hundred Album.
In K.C. Frederick's "After Lyletown," Alan Ripley's past holds an event of heavier consequence. As a grad student in the '60s, Ripley fell in with a radical crowd that plotted to knock over a gun store and pass along the weapons to black communities struggling for their civil rights. Hardly a committed revolutionary, Ripley is less in love with the idea of arming minorities than he is with the woman who hatched the plot.
As fate would have it, he gets neither the woman nor the chance to prove his loyalty to her plan. A case of appendicitis lands him in the hospital when the caper goes down. Things go badly; one man dies and another ends up in jail for a long stretch.
Twenty years later, Ripley is a successful lawyer living in the suburbs of Boston with his wife and son. His life is comfortable. Until Rory, the man who spent several years in jail over the failed weapons heist, rings him up.
After Rory entered the story, I spent much of my reading time expecting something big and bad to happen. And while it never does, Frederick develops great suspense. What does Rory want from Alan? Why does Alan hide his past from his wife? What will happen when she finds out about this dark chapter of his life? Will Rory blackmail Alan and ruin his married and professional lives?
Rather than add more violence and crime to the initial, and crucial, episode, Frederick builds the story by gradually filling in the details of Alan's past and present. In some ways, he's like a reformed convict, although he didn't take part in the failed plot, and didn't serve jail time. He realized that his hospitalization was a gift, and that he needed to mature, and use that opportunity to help people. Sure, there was a failed marriage. Sure, he's not always sure he's doing the right thing in his job. But that's what makes him such a human protagonist.
"After Lyletown" springs from a revolutionary era in the United States. The book succeeds, however, because Frederick understands the quiet moments from which real change occurs: poor decision-making made in the name of love, guilt kept close to the vest, blind faith that an associate with a chequered past won't ruin one's life.
Frederick does a great job of bringing the reader into Alan's convoluted life, and reminding us that we cannot, ultimately, escape our own history.
