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canadiantiquarian's review
4.0
The final novel from author Phyllis Brett Young.
Before Margaret Atwood turned one of the first true-crime sensations into the novel Alias Grace, Young penned Judgment, a fictional account of a young Canadian teacher named Ashley who finds herself secretly intertwined in an international murder mystery. While the former adds real-world feelings to the people at the heart of a crime, the latter explores the actions and motivations of those immediately surrounding the events.
Judgment isn't about making definitive statements, but exploring the rationale around extraordinary and mundane events, and the many secret webs that surround them. As the police investigation unfolds on the radio, coincidence leads Ashley to become a reluctant secretive investigator, holding missing evidence and the secrets of those partially linked to the tragedy. She is a young woman struggling with both her first tastes of adulthood, and the responsibility of her confidences.
Young's protagonist is complicated woman with moral highs and lows, whose inner workings show just how much morality can fluctuate within one person. The reader is not allowed to agree, disagree, or abstain from Ashley's choices without first viewing how they work together. She is a woman working towards an atypical end, inspiring moments of agreement and aghast disagreement (by the reader and those around her).
Young was a writer skilled at revealing the unspoken in 50s-60s post-war women -- the intellectual worlds hidden behind more traditional performances of womanhood. In exploring that mind space, it's easy to start understanding the generations of women who came before, how times have changed, and how they stay the same.
That she is largely forgotten is a shame.
Before Margaret Atwood turned one of the first true-crime sensations into the novel Alias Grace, Young penned Judgment, a fictional account of a young Canadian teacher named Ashley who finds herself secretly intertwined in an international murder mystery. While the former adds real-world feelings to the people at the heart of a crime, the latter explores the actions and motivations of those immediately surrounding the events.
Judgment isn't about making definitive statements, but exploring the rationale around extraordinary and mundane events, and the many secret webs that surround them. As the police investigation unfolds on the radio, coincidence leads Ashley to become a reluctant secretive investigator, holding missing evidence and the secrets of those partially linked to the tragedy. She is a young woman struggling with both her first tastes of adulthood, and the responsibility of her confidences.
Young's protagonist is complicated woman with moral highs and lows, whose inner workings show just how much morality can fluctuate within one person. The reader is not allowed to agree, disagree, or abstain from Ashley's choices without first viewing how they work together. She is a woman working towards an atypical end, inspiring moments of agreement and aghast disagreement (by the reader and those around her).
Young was a writer skilled at revealing the unspoken in 50s-60s post-war women -- the intellectual worlds hidden behind more traditional performances of womanhood. In exploring that mind space, it's easy to start understanding the generations of women who came before, how times have changed, and how they stay the same.
That she is largely forgotten is a shame.
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