Prom Mom
This book takes place in Baltimore, in two timelines. The first is 1997. Teenage Amber Glass’s prom date is Joe Simpson, the boy she’s been crushing on for months. There’s an after-party they’re supposed to go to, but Amber isn’t feeling well. She ends up alone in a hotel bathroom, giving birth to a 28-week baby. (She had been naively ignoring any signs of pregnancy, and had masked her “weight gain” with loose clothes.) By the time anyone learns about it, the baby is dead.
There is a huge media fuss, labelling her “Prom Mom.” Joe is also called “Cad Dad” for leaving her alone while he went to the after party. Amber spent two years in juvenile detention, and when she got out, her mother refused to let her come live at home.
The second timeline starts in 2019 and runs into 2020. Amber, who is now thirty-eight, has spent the intervening years in Florida and then New Orleans working in various jobs, most recently as an art gallery assistant. She’s now back in Baltimore to settle her stepfather’s estate. She decides to stay in the city and set up a folk art gallery in a mall near her old neighbourhood.
Joe is back in Baltimore too. After the events of 1997, he spent several years in Texas, first working for his Uncle Tony’s real-estate firm, then attending university and marrying Meredith. Though he would have liked to stay in Texas, Meredith got into medical school at John’s Hopkins, so they moved to Baltimore. They’re now both very successful: he in commercial real estate, she as a prominent plastic surgeon.
Inevitably, Amber and Joe meet up again. Joe adores Meredith, but Amber knew the boy he used to be, which is an attraction to a man facing his forties. As the story unfolds, we see events through not just Amber’s eyes, but Joe’s and Meredith’s as well. Things get complicated; dreams and loyalties get tangled; secrets are weaponized.
And look at those dates again. Early 2020 is when the covid pandemic started. Alongside other events, we gradually notice characters shopping for toilet paper, stocking their freezers, and deciding where and whether to wear masks. People are staying home; Joe’s shopping centre loses tenants, while Amber’s gallery thrives with online sales.
Like all of Lippman’s novels, the book is entertaining and highly readable, and the characters take the plot in unexpected directions. The twists at the end, which put a new perspective on a lot of the story we’ve encountered up to then, were ones I didn’t quite see coming.
Laura Lippman was born 1959 in Atlanta, but was raised in Maryland. She was a reporter for twenty years, first in San Antonio and then in Baltimore. She wrote her first seven novels while working full-time at the Baltimore Sun, writing in the early mornings before heading to work.
Lippman’s books have won multiple awards, including the Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, Nero, Gumshoe and Shamus awards. She is best known for her series featuring private investigator Tess Monaghan, beginning with Baltimore Blues in 1997 and most recently with the twelfth in the series, Hush Hush (2015). She has also written 13 standalone novels (including Prom Mom in 2023) and three short story collections. In 2023 she also published a memoir, The Summer of Fall.
Lippman has been married twice, most recently to David Simon, creator of The Wire. She and Simon separated in 2020, but are collegial co-parents of their daughter, born in 2010.
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