Finding an audiobook that I want to listen to is always a tricky business. Just like how I can be picky about the books I want to read, I have certain preferences when it comes to audiobooks. From the narrator to the genre there is a lot I consider before choosing an audiobook. Personally, I tend to find crime and detective stories to be the most engaging in audiobook form. I have talked about my love for the audiobooks of Joy Ellis’ “DI Jackman and DS Evans series” before. However, when it came to Courtney Summer’s Sadie it was not the mystery crime aspect that drew me, but rather the narrative technique of telling the story as if it were being heard live as part of a crime podcast or radio show.
Sadie tells the story of nineteen-year-old Sadie who goes missing after the death of her thirteen-year-old sister Mattie. West McCray, a radio personality is contacted by Sadie’s surrogate grandmother to help find clues and figure out what happened to Sadie, which results in the podcast series that features as much of the books content. Interspaced with these podcast ‘episodes’ are chapters from Sadie’s own point of view detailing where she has gone and why.
What begins as a ‘simple’ case of a missing girl, as McCray believes it to be, becomes an incredibly impactful tale of sisterhood, trauma, abuse and loss. While the events that unfold have the listener intrigued, I found myself wanting to hear more about the relationships, primarily between the female characters. McCray names his podcast The Girls, an incredibly apt name for as the real core of the book is not the murder or the disappearance of these sisters, but the relationship between them and their relationship with their mother. So much of their lives, as those of many, are defined by these relationships.
What particularly stood out to me was how the strain and tension of those relationships caused the lines of familial responsibility to be blurred. At its base, the novel is all about family. Living out of a trailer park with their alcoholic mother, Sadie very much takes over the role of caring for her sister. Not only does Sadie take on the role of primary caretaker for her sister, but you come to realise that Sadie’s whole identity becomes defined by her love and desire to care for Mattie. It comes as no shock to discover then that Sadie is unable to move past Mattie’s death.
And on the note of relationships, I was particularly drawn to the one that West McCray develops to Sadie as he attempts to discover what has happened to her. Near the start of the story, McCray seems reluctant to take on the hunt for Sadie stating, ‘girls go missing all the time’. From the start this can seem particularly callous, but it is revealed to be a defence mechanism. Because the reality is not that girls go missing all the time, but that the girls who do go missing often do not have a happy ending, and it’s one that McCray is scared to discover.
This contemporary curiosity of murder mystery podcasts, or serial killer podcasts can at times be verging on voyeuristic of grief. A grief so intense that it, in itself, can seem intriguing because it it’s complexity. Often, I have wondered how ethical it is for storytelling methods to appropriate this grief for entertainment purposes. However, while McCray’s first attempts to understand the context surrounding Sadie’s disappearance can seem this way, Summers’ talented writing ensures that the listener is conscious of the attachment McCray develops towards those affected by Sadie’s disappearance.
Much of the story telling is geared towards unpacking what happens to communities and people that go through trauma. As such, Sadie is not an easy book to read, or hear as it was in my case, but every moment was gripping. From the mystery of what happened to Mattie, to the tension of Sadie’s mission, Summers’ has created a tale that is both heart-wrenching and impossible to let go of.
~S~
