Before, After and Somebody in Between, Jeannine Garsee

Garsee, Jeannine (2007).
Before, After, and Somebody in Between
New York: Bloomsbury USA Children's Books
9781599902920
Genre: Realistic Fiction


SUBJECT: Alcoholism, drug abuse, problem families, high school, poverty fiction

After dealing with an alcoholic mother and her abusive boyfriend, a school bully, and life on the wrong side of the tracks in Cleveland, Ohio, high school sophomore Martha Kowalski expects to be happy when she moves in with a rich family across town, but finds that the "rich life" has problems of its own.
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Martha Kowalski is a intelligent and beautiful girl who suffers because of her environment. She has an alcoholic mother who resents Martha’s love of music, in fact, Martha’s existence; she clothes herself from the Goodwill box in the hallway and eats whatever happens to be in the kitchen when her mother remembers to go grocery shopping. And her mother has a knack for picking losers as boyfriends. So when Martha and her mother move in with Wayne, an abusive alcoholic who rents his upstairs to a single black mother with 3 kids, Martha wonders why her mother can’t do something differently- get sober, pick a better man and live somewhere decent. Martha befriends Jerome one o the boys who lives upstairs and the two forge a friendship. But it doesn’t allow her to escape her life. Martha suffers taunting from the kids at school and, in one crucial scene, Martha pulls a knife on her tormentor. Garsee includes so many crucial scenes: Jerome’s cousin steals Martha’s cello; Martha steals Jerome’s drug money to pay for it, and when the cousin cannot pay his debts, the drug dealers commit a drive by shooting; Jerome’s baby brother is killed. The same night all of this happens, Martha’s mom kicks Martha out of the house in a drunken stupor. When mom ends up in a rehab, again, Martha is sent to live with foster families. After a bad experience, she ends up living with a wealthy lawyer, his wife and daughter. The story becomes a fairy tale as Martha desperately tries to change her life and identity. However, Martha learns that she has to face who she is once her mother completes rehab and Martha must return to her poverty stricken life. Garsee descriptions are gritty and raw-- from the stained clothes that Martha wears to her Martha’s mom strung out on the couch with her rehab friends to Martha’s longing for a chance at a new life with a music scholarship. The fairy tale stereotypes of the wealthy family are realistic in that the family hides their own secrets of alcoholism and drug dependency. Martha, and readers alike, are afforded the opportunity to witness the effects of drug abuse in the poor and wealthy alike. When Martha returns and her mother relapses, Martha leaves the house and readers are left with the image of Martha calling her social worker from a pay phone, and readers will wonder if Martha will make it.