Taking Baby for a Walk, the third novel by Australian author Kathryn Gossow, tells the harrowing story of five-year-old Bree-Anna’s abduction while walking alone a few days before Christmas. Similar to 2010’s Room by Emma Donough, Gossow brings the reader into the perspective of Bree-Anna as she struggles to understand what is happening to her. Gossow leans on dramatic irony to develop the tension, as we the audience are gripped by a greater understanding of what child abductions can entail.
The novel, named after the walk with her baby doll that results in Bree-Anna’s abduction, spans just five days, beginning on the morning of December 20th. The small town of Stink Gully is one where most people know each other and every interaction is a point of reconnection, whether for better or worse. Over those few days, Gossow uses a third person close perspective to dip into the minds of neighbors around Stinky Gully, including Jake, a down-and-out man trying to reconnect with his estranged wife and his daughter, and Eloise, a friend of Bree-Anna’s mother.
Not only does Gossow build a more realistic setting by moving between these characters and the complexities of their lives, but she also emphasizes all the missed opportunities and close calls involved in Bree-Anna’s abduction. Again the reader is put in a privileged, though stressful, position of recognizing the greater picture as we repeatedly see characters unknowingly come close to finding Bree-Anna and her captor, only to disregard those red-flag interactions as insignificant.
Taking Baby for a Walk is not a book for everyone. At points, it is crass, bordering on vulgar, and, naturally given the subject matter, forces the reader to reconcile with many of the unsavory realities of humanity. Moments such as Bree-Anna being forced to pee her pants for lack of access to a bathroom are uncomfortable to read through, but invoke in the reader similar feelings to what the young girl herself is feeling. Beyond Bree-Anna’s abduction and all that it implies, the characters of the town also engage in extra marital affairs, alcoholism, referenced drug use, and the realities of financial hardship we often wish to turn a blind eye to. Despite this, Gossow handles these rough-and-tumble characters with nuance, touching on the vulnerabilities and hopes that motivate these occasionally unsavory characters. This is not a book that exists purely to valorize suffering. It can, at times, be an endurance test for the reader, one that likely should not be completed in one sitting. Regardless, there are underlying themes of hope and, in proper Christmas spirit, reconnecting with family, be it parents, siblings, or children. The phrase “family is the most important thing” is a running motif in the story, but Gossow doesn’t shy away from exposing the hypocrisy that often underlies that statement. That is ultimately the crux of this book, which digs into the realities, good and bad, of humanity in a small, tumbledown town.
Please note that this book contains potential triggering material, such as child abduction and child abuse.
A digital copy of Taking Baby for a Walk was provided by Odyssey Books for this review. Taking Baby for a Walk can be purchased from Odyssey Books here.
Tori Bissonette (she/her) is a Vermont-transplant currently living in Philadelphia. There she studies creative writing and English as a graduate student at Arcadia University. Presently she’s the Submissions Manager and Nonfiction Editor for Marathon Literary Review, Arcadia’s MFA-run literary magazine. When she’s not writing, she can be found hiking or cooking. She has work forthcoming in The Writing Disorder. Connect with her on Twitter @RoseOfTori.
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