In which the hope is that a tyger tyger does indeed burn bright.

Publisher: Ashland Creek Press
Pages: 316
Type: Fiction
Age: Adult
ISBN: 978-1-618-22083-7
First Published: 16th July 2019
Date Reviewed: 1st February 2021
Rating: 4.5/5

Sisters Quinn and Sarah are still haunted by the death of Sarah’s twin, Marcus, in childhood, and the family’s subsequent move back to the US from India; mother and daughters left, leaving dad, the reason they were in India, behind. Now, many years later, Quinn has a young family and finds herself always worrying about her son’s asthma (he’s also half of a set of twins), and Sarah’s so far spent her career reporting on dangerous situations. When Sarah leaves her career to go back to India and join a tiger conservation, it brings things back to the fore for both sisters as well as their mother. And amidst this is the plight of the tigers and the villages that live next to the reserves, two species vying for the same resources that too often results in disaster.

Three Ways To Disappear is a very well written and carefully handled novel about trauma such as that stated above, and conservation when there is little literal space between animals and humans.

There is a special individuality to Yocom’s book. You have the two narratives that, whilst connected, are very different and enable the story as a whole to have a very diverse atmosphere to it – and I’m not talking about the different cultures and locations here. The sisters are very different, their working backgrounds and choices in regards to family are different, and whilst at heart their thoughts and, often, problems, are informed by the same events, the resulting actions are dissimilar enough that it can be easy to forget that they are indeed forged by the same thing.

The choice of family, or life in general, is where this is most apparent, particularly when it comes to Quinn. Quinn’s story is pretty mundane and quiet compared to Sarah’s life covering war zones and further violence; it can come as a surprise that Quinn’s story can have more of an affect on your reading experience and what you take away than Sarah’s does.

Let’s look at the two stories. Sarah’s is where the tiger conservation comes in and, as the cover might suggest, this is a major part of the book. Yocom’s research shines through each section, from the expected conservation, to life in the locations in India where the needs of human survival come into conflict with animal survival. Yocom details the circumstances that create this conflict – lack of land, the need to conserve whilst also acknowledging the fact that more tigers equals less space and resources for humans. She looks at communities that are obviously based in reality in both an emphatic and studious way – this book is certainly fiction, but the truths that run throughout it, and the very real issues, are laid out very well. Where Sarah herself is concerned – Sarah serves as both a fully-fledged character driving the narrative herself and a vehicle to allow the reality to show – we have the appreciation that this is a white western person looking from the outside in; however much Sarah spent her formative years in India and remembers the language local to her, she is still an outsider and makes poor choices, the choices themselves another aspect of the book that Yocom has handled with care. So, too, the use of religion and mythology, which I’ll leave there.

Away from the conservation, Sarah’s story starts with relief – along with the background we get to begin with, our picture of her is of her past career and the choice to change it for something that – if still overseas from home – is completely different. Her passion drives her – she sees something to work for and she goes for it, and this pervades throughout the book whether it’s the tigers, or the women who need an income, or a possible romance.

Quinn’s passion is different, quieter, like her life. The affects of Marcus’ death have led to her being an anxious mother, particularly as she grew up to have twins herself. Quinn’s strength as a character are in her thoughts on family, on how the present relates to today, where her family – nuclear and extended – come into it. Her twins have some growing to do, but so does she, in the way she deals with others, the advantage she gives them over her. Quinn’s narrative, whilst, as said, not the exciting one, and pretty restricted in locale, is perhaps the stronger one, which is an interesting point in itself. I’d go so far as to say that it serves as a reminder of how important every person is, regardless of how ‘average’ their life.

The book walks an interesting line between the predictable and not so – if you strip the book down to its bare basics, you will see where some of it is headed (some, not all) but with the entirety of its contents together, a lot of aspects are far more foggy to work out. It’s well done. Will you expect a romance? You might, you might not. There may or may not be one. Will you expect the ending? The same applies.

The ending is incredibly poignant, and asks you to consider the whole, starting from the beginning of what you’ve read to the final pages; it also asks you questions about specifics.

This, the winning nature of the ending, is due to the characters’ thought processes and the use of the concept of the three ways to disappear. You may count many sets of three ways, and each will bring you new understanding, opening the novel a bit further every time in a way that I can only call interactive. It’s based in the way each character copes, it’s based in the past, present, and future, and the various ways of living that are presented in the book.

Three Ways To Disappear is great. It does so much in a relatively short time, takes you to locations beyond the geographical, and it presents constant beginnings and ways forward, regardless of endings.