Barbara Gowdy's "Helpless"

When I first finished the novel, the ending seemed remarkably abrupt, like there was one chapter missing. It was as if the author just closed her laptop and walked away from it, intending to come back to it but never getting the chance. She tied up the loose ends that needed to be tied up (the major plot resolution) and left the rest of the details to the imagination. My first response was “Did she just give up?”

But then I kept thinking about the plot. Like the other book by Gowdy that I’ve read, The Romantic, I kept thinking about this one well after I’d put down the book. And I found myself thinking about the characters, and what would have happened if she’d written out all the details.

Who would have found the kidnapper? What would have been said about him? Would people have been shocked at his identity? Or would they have nodded and said “Oh, that makes sense, I should have thought of it”? What would the little girl have told the police and therapist (assuming that she had one)? Would the police have figured out the exact truth of why she was held, or would the mystery have hung over their heads? And what would have become of the kidnapper’s accomplice?

Sitting at my desk at work with nothing else to do the rest of the afternoon, I found myself playing Spider Solitaire and running through the various scenes, conversations, and discoveries that could have been included at the end. And somehow, this satisfied me. Maybe this kind of rumination is what the author had in mind.