Behind You: A Novel
General fiction, LGBTQ+ fiction, Suspense and thrillers
Synthetic audio, Automated braille
Summary
As terror grips a city, a young girl faces danger closer to home and chilling memories that last a lifetime.Catherine Hernandez's most gripping and affecting novel yet, Behind You is inspired by a horrifying chapter in Canadian history and follows… fictional characters terrorized by a fictional perpetrator.Alma is a Filipina woman who works as a film editor for a cheesy True Crime series featuring the most notorious killers of the 20th century called Infamous. On the surface she seems to live a good life with her wife Nira and teenage son, Mateo. But there is so much left unsaid.It's not until Infamous' last episode features the Scarborough Stalker that she remembers coming of age while the serial rapist and killer was attacking women and girls in Scarborough in the late 80s and early 90s.What unfolds are two storylines: In the past, young Alma watches an entire city become consumed with a manhunt for an elusive, terrifying suspect, while she herself is in jeopardy from closer corners. In the present, adult Alma must come to terms with her own ideas of consent to stop her son's dangerous behaviour towards his girlfriend.Weaving back and forth in time, Behind You, is a moving story of one girl’s resilience into adulthood and a chilling portrayal of the insidiousness if rape culture. It daringly turns the Whodunit genre on its head by asking the question "Who hasn't done it?" As in, who has not been complicit in sexual harm?