Inside

Image of Inside
Author(s): 
Release Date: 
May 15, 2012
Publisher/Imprint: 
Alfred A. Knopf
Pages: 
272
Reviewed by: 

Inside touches on the complicated interdependency of divergent personalities, creating an authentic and empathetic read.”

Inside
takes the reader on an intense, emotional journey spanning ten years traveling through the lives of complex characters and various locations around the globe.

Grace Mitchell, a highly qualified and effective therapist in Montreal, makes her life’s purpose that of listening to people’s problems and helping them along the way to living normal, fulfilling, and hassle free existence.

An introvert, Grace makes her career, with the exception of her passion for skiing, primary in her life. It is on the frozen slopes that Grace happens upon someone in the snow—a man who has tried to commit suicide and failed. Grace saves him only to find herself drawn to his enigmatic charisma.

Could she be falling in love with this person or is he another case she must treat?

Mitch, Grace’s ex-husband, is also a therapist, but one who suffers from wanderlust and who deigns to treat people in remote corners of the world, from Montreal to the Arctic to Rwanda. He divorces Grace, claiming their marriage is stale and realizing he does not love her. He meets and falls for a local woman who appears ambivalent about his feelings, though Mitch seems to be drawn more to her young son who is mildly autistic. Mitch ingratiates himself into this small family, believing he has found what he wants and needs—stability, love, and acceptance. Soon his desire to roam, and his uncertainties about this relationship and his life cause him to leave Montreal to treat those in frigid Iqaluit.

An affluent Montreal couple send their troubled teenage daughter, Annie, to Grace for counseling. Digging deep, Grace tries to find the underlying problems in order to help her. But this young woman is guarded and does not confide in her. All she recounts are numerous falsehoods in her need to get attention.

After Annie discloses certain unsettling information to her parents, they confront Grace, intent on tarnishing her reputation, causing Grace to ponder her self worth and competency. Meanwhile, Annie flees to New York to start fresh on her own.

Mitch, Grace, Annie—Will these characters discover their true paths, attain confidence, find and keep love, and wrap themselves in acceptance? Inside touches on the complicated interdependency of divergent personalities, creating an authentic and empathetic read.