The Day after Death by Lynn C. Miller (review)

Lynn C. Miller's heroine, Amanda Ferguson, was an actress in her earlier life, and while Miller's title, The Day after Death, refers to Amanda's life post the psyche-defining deaths of people near her, it is Miller's characters' previous existences which continuously propel the plot and character development of this novel. In present day Texas, while working as a financial advisor, Amanda meets and is immediately drawn to a woman whom she finds quite familiar, actress Teresa. In fact, Teresa is currently starring in a production of Pinter's Betrayal, a play that Amanda has put her heart and soul into many years earlier as a senior in college. Amanda comments that, having been invited to Teresa's play, "several dark recesses in my own life came into focus from that moment when the stage lights came up and the play began." As the novel sheds light on these "dark recesses," Amanda's previous life in the realms of academia and theatre pairs with another trauma from her past: her relationship with her older brother and mother including the unresolved blame that she imparts regarding her twin brother's childhood death. With much of the plot's heavy lifting occurring while Amanda sits Freudian-style on a couch opposite her psychiatrist, Helen, Miller's novel truly fits the definition of a psychological thriller as readers are privy to the innerworkings of Amanda's memory and to her sessions with Helen as Helen helps Amanda remember and consider the previous sufferings of her life that she had earlier tried to forget.

While psychological thrillers are fairly commonplace among current literature, Amanda's relationship with her therapist offers a professional and deep look into the human memory that is most often absent in other novels of the "grip-lit" genre. Based on what readers can only assume is valid psychiatric science, Helen's perspective on Amanda clearly improves Amanda's life as it teaches her how to work through the issues of her past. Rather than ruminating on obviously hurtful and detrimental memories, Miller shows that, with Helen's help, Amanda is working toward a more complete understanding of her life and toward being able to objectively critique her behaviors and the behaviors of those around her. For example, the introspective commentary that Amanda expresses throughout the novel reflects a dialogue that she has likely learned from Helen, a trained psychiatric professional. Using language that suggests a wisdom regarding her recollections, Amanda says, "Looking back, my relationships with men – and there were many of them – possessed a certain strained quality. I suspect I tried so hard and so often to find the perfect man in an attempt to overrun my own inhibitions." Understanding the reasoning behind past decisions as well as the consequences that her actions have on her life is a unique perspective for a character whose memories of the past appear to have left her fairly broken and mentally unstable. Amanda says to Helen, "I know what it's like to feel empty"; however, Helen's response to Amanda is what separates Miller's main character from other novels of its type. Helen remarks, "Of course you know. That's partly why you're here. You want to change, to grow"; thus, in this way, Miller breaks the mold of many current psychological thrillers. Unlike, for example, Gillian Flynn's heroine Camille in her breakout novel Sharp Objects, Amanda is shown to be a character in distress who is getting help with the disturbing memories of her previous life; thus, in this case, the character of Helen offers a more professional and authentic twist to the term "psychological thriller."

Helen's psychological expertise not only defines the novel through her repeated assistance with Amanda's memories but through her help in the resolution of the novel's mystery as well. Throughout the novel, Amanda is working with Helen to remember various events regarding her relationship with her university theatre group's director, Sarah. In a nutshell (and...