42 pages • 1 hour read
Exiles
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Prologue-Chapter 8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Prologue Summary
Detective Aaron Falk recalls the beginning of the case. A year earlier, Falk left his home in Melbourne to go to the Marralee Valley in Australia’s wine country for the christening of his friend Greg Raco’s son Henry. Raco, a police officer in Falk’s hometown of Kiewarra, is from Marralee. While Falk was in town, a baby was discovered in a stroller at the Marralee Valley Annual Food and Wine Festival. The baby’s name—Zoe Gillespie—was written on the label of her onesie. Staff at the festival called her mother, Kim, but her phone was in the stroller, along with her ID, keys, and money. They reached her father, Rohan, who was dining in a nearby restaurant with his parents, and he came to claim Zoe. Two days later, Kim’s shoe was discovered by a reservoir near the festival, but the search eventually went cold. The christening was postponed because of Kim’s disappearance.
Chapter 1 Summary: “One Year Later”
A year later, Falk returns to the Marralee Valley for the rescheduled christening. At a scenic overlook, he runs into Zoe and Rohan. They discuss Kim’s disappearance, which is still unsolved.
Chapter 2 Summary
Falk arrives at Penvale Vineyard, which belongs to Raco’s brother Charlie. Charlie is Kim’s exboyfriend and has custody of their daughter Zara. Falk thinks about being there a year earlier as he says hello to Raco, his wife Rita, and their children Henry and Eva.
Zara has made a flyer to hand out during this year’s festival. The family hopes it will jog the memory of visitors who attended the festival last year and result in new information about Kim’s disappearance. It reminds Falk of seeing Kim on the Ferris wheel the night she disappeared. He also recalls that Rohan could not account for his whereabouts for several crucial minutes on that night. Falk considers how memory, including his, can be faulty.
Chapter 3 Summary
Raco takes Falk to the vineyard’s guesthouse to drop off his things. Back in the kitchen of the main house, Falk and the family gather for dinner. Falk thinks about how Zara chose to live with Charlie after Kim married Rohan. He then remembers an event from the previous year. Zara called her mother, and Falk saw Kim on Zara’s phone screen. Zara ended the call as her mother was saying that she loved her, and Falk thinks Zara now must regret cutting her off.
Chapter 4 Summary
After dinner, Zara, Raco, Charlie, and Falk head to the festival. Falk recalls making the drive the previous year. This year is more somber as they prepare to hand out the flyers about Kim. As they park, Falk recalls seeing Kim’s car and Rohan next to it. Falk noticed Zara looking at a sticker on Kim’s car. It showed a family with three members.
Once inside the festival, Zara goes to police Sergeant Dwyer, who tells the people handing out flyers to focus on tourists. Falk recalls that Dwyer was out of town last year when Kim disappeared. Zara tells the group that her mother didn’t die by suicide, as some suspect. Moreover, Zara’s friend Joel Tozer was at the festival gate near the reservoir last year and says that Kim never came that way on the night she disappeared. Raco asks Falk to walk to the reservoir with him.
Chapter 5 Summary
Raco and Falk talk about Zara as they walk to the reservoir. Zara believes she has seen her mother during the past year. Falk asks Raco if Zara and Joel are a couple. Raco says Joel has a crush on her, which makes his testimony unreliable. Zara doesn’t believe the shoe they found was Kim’s, but Raco is certain it was due to a distinctive scorch mark.
There are cameras along the path, which Raco notes as a change from previous years. They see a volunteer at the gate where Joel worked last year, and they believe Joel could have been distracted and missed Kim. Raco mentions that Joel’s stepmother is Gemma and that Falk met her once.
Chapter 6 Summary
Falk recalls meeting Gemma. Raco visited Melbourne a little over a year earlier and asked Falk if Gemma could join them for drinks. Raco backed out at the last minute, so Falk and Gemma had drinks without him. Falk was attracted to her.
Chapter 7 Summary
At the reservoir, Falk and Raco hear young people partying in the woods, which is a tradition during the festival. They talk about how Zara partied there last year and believes that if her mother had jumped in the water she would have seen it. The two men discuss Kim and Charlie’s past relationship and her marriage to Rohan. Kim was from Marralee, but she, Rohan, and Zoe moved to Adelaide. Kim had ongoing mental health issues. Raco says they couldn’t search the entire reservoir at the time of her disappearance because of limited funds.
Chapter 8 Summary
Raco and Falk head back to the festival. Falk meets Shane McAfee, who works for Charlie, and they talk about Shane’s football career. Falk recalls seeing Shane play. Shane says he grew up with the Raco family. Then, Rohan, Dwyer, and Zara prepare to address the crowd. Falk sees Gemma and is still attracted to her.
Prologue-Chapter 8 Analysis
The first section of the novel introduces its central mystery: the disappearance of Kim Gillespie. It also established the sleuth and protagonist, Aaron Falk. Most of the novel, until the last section, is written from his perspective in a limited third-person point of view. Falk is connected to Marralee through his friend Greg Raco, a police sergeant in Falk’s hometown. Raco’s hometown is Marralee, and Raco invites Falk there for his son’s christening. This event had to be rescheduled due to Kim’s disappearance. The main plot of the story occurs a year after Kim went missing.
Home and Exile is a central theme of the novel. Falk visits Penvale Vineyard, which is owned and run by Raco’s brother, Charlie. Most of the Raco family calls Marralee home. Falk’s hometown is also small and rural. These small towns stand in contrast to Melbourne, where Falk works, and Adelaide, where Kim lived after she moved away from Marralee. When Raco backed out of their meeting in Melbourne, Falk asked himself “Stay or go?” (55) regarding drinks with Gemma. This foreshadows Falk’s questioning whether he wants to stay in Marralee at the end of the novel.
Another theme introduced in this section is Perception and Reality. Falk and Kim’s friends feel guilty that she disappeared in their presence—they did not perceive that she was in danger or under duress. Falk also notes that witness statements don’t always reflect reality: “What they’d seen and that they thought they’d seen were not necessarily one and the same” (17). This statement foreshadows what everyone at the festival missed but will be revealed at the end of the novel. Kim was never there. The witnesses, including Falk, saw someone who looked like her and misled themselves into believing that they saw her. Sightings of Kim were “false glimpses” (41). She was killed before she reached the festival.
A third theme introduced in this section is Memory’s Impact on the Present. Falk perceives events in the present through the lens of his visit to Marralee Valley a year earlier. He compares and contrasts Marralee and its inhabitants from past to present. The guesthouse at the vineyard was “just as Falk remembered” (21). On the other hand, the festival has changed. Falk notes that “it all looked a little different a year on” (43). He and Raco remember how it used to be and perceive the differences. There are more security precautions, and the mood is more somber.
The residents of Marralee also develop the theme of Memory’s Impact on the Present. The adults tolerate the annual party in the woods because they look fondly back at their teenage parties. Raco says they are “all suckers for nostalgia” (60). It is revealed later that Rohan attempted to assault Kim at the party when they were teenagers. Additionally, Falk wonders if Zara dwells on the final time she spoke to her mother and cut her off as she was saying that she loved her. Perhaps her insistence that her mother is alive stems from guilt over how she interacted with her during their final conversation. Each character views the evidence surrounding Kim’s disappearance through their memories of the past.
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