Three boys gone by Mark Smith

This is every teacher’s worst nightmare: an excursion gone wrong and three students dead.  A relatively new teacher to St Finbar’s school, Grace Disher was the one who planned the outdoor education hike, briefed the two male teachers accompanying the group of high school students, and the only teacher to see the three boys somehow ahead of the main group, plunging into the rip-bound sea. She knows the first rule of rescue: don’t create another casualty. She knows that if she went after them she would have drowned too.

Grace’s decision sees her world spiralling out of control; she becomes the focus of a police investigation, sensational news reporting, and social media speculation, all on top of her own feelings of shock and grief. And it also gradually becomes apparent that someone has a vendetta against her.

Smith excels at depicting the vicious maelstrom of social media, the hacking of personal images, and the unrestrained onslaught of opinionated abuse. Even in personal and work relationships there is an undercurrent of questioning her decision, of words unsaid, and discomfort in her presence. She is not allowed to grieve with the parents of the boys; it is as though she is the enemy.

I thought the portrayal of the principal, Jim Sheridan, was especially well portrayed; in his mediation of his role as public representative of the school, his responsibility to staff involved, his accountability to the Catholic Schools Directorate, and his own personal grief over the loss of a nephew.

The fallout has consequences not only for Grace as a teacher, but also for her personal life, as her same-sex relationship with another teacher becomes spotlighted in a way that neither of them are prepared for, adding to the social media fuel.

For me, the issues that Smith explores of trauma, guilt, isolation, and persecution are inherently absorbing in themselves. It didn’t need the extra elements of the psychological thriller, which he adds as the novel progresses, that of the unhinged pursuer. But avid readers of the thriller genre may disagree.

There is some unevenness in tone, some switches in narrator view, that detract from the narrative, but overall this novel explore issues highly relevant to all readers, of navigating personal responsibility and stress, and the dangers of social media.

Themes: Trauma, Guilt, Responsibility, Social media, LGBQTI+.

Helen Eddy