In Gordon Bocher’s second novel, THE EMMA EFFECT, he deploys his protagonist to examine the psychological aftermath of trauma and the powerful influence one individual can have on another.
Mitch Lavin tastes the bitterness of tragedy at a young age, when the six-year-old’s parents are tragically killed in a car accident, leaving him – the sole survivor – to be raised by his great-aunt, Helen. This catastrophe does not prevent Mitch from becoming a relatively well-adjusted adolescent, winning a full scholarship to Widmarck College. Here, he makes his mark on the soccer field. Mitch is physically solid, at “six feet tall and very well built”, rendering him popular and seemingly safe from victimization.
Mitch’s sense of trust is shaken, however, in his senior year: he is cruelly manipulated by his fiancé and her friend, and subjected to a humiliating sexual episode that is to haunt him for years to come. The incident is enough to force Mitch to flee school and find employment, landing a job with Mining Consortium International (MCI), a role which soon sees him sent to Afghanistan to source sites suitable for mining ore. It is also through this employment that he encounters three individuals set to play an important role in his life: his boss, General Creighton Wheeler, counselor Dr. Linda House – and “quiet and contemplative” administrative assistant, the eponymous Emma Waterson. From the moment of introduction, Emma has an almost hypnotic effect on the young man: “She exuded a sense of serenity that [Mitch] found compelling.” This characteristic is reiterated in a later chapter, wherein it is revealed that Emma’s mother had many years ago recognized in her daughter “a serenity of the soul that she had never seen in any other person.” Thus, the narrative clues clearly signpost the role that Emma is to play in Mitch’s healing process.
But Emma is not the only powerful salve in Mitch’s journey to psychological recovery. During his very first therapy session, Mitch disgorges the particulars of his college ordeal in graphic and protracted detail. One is tempted to question the plausibility of this, given the extent to which Mitch’s trust has been eroded. It soon becomes evident, however, that Mitch’s relationships with women are one characterized by his submissiveness – probably initiated by the corporal punishment meted out by his Aunt Helen. Unsurprisingly, Mitch has a substantial amount of emotional baggage to unpack – and Emma is to play a pivotal role in ‘fixing’ him.
Gordon Bocher’s THE EMMA EFFECT explores the notion of male vulnerability through the lens of a sexual assault in a story that is deliberately discomfiting – and well worth a read.
~Amanda Ellison for IndieReader