From Library Journal
Joanie Muhlenberg hits and kills a man while driving home from her son's first communion. She is terrified and guilt-ridden but can't seem to bring herself to call the police. The victim turns out to be a friend of her stereotyped, clannish Italian family and a "business associate" of Bruno, another family friend, whose long, unrequited love for Joanie is pushy and a bit creepy. The longer she delays, the worse it gets. Bruno is after the killer for the money the late Tommy was carrying the night he was killed. When he finds out that Joanie did it, and presumably got the money, things turn ugly. This is Shepard's fourth novel (following Lights Out in the Reptile House , LJ 2/15/90) and a perfect plot for a TV movie. Not for the squeamish.
- Susan Clifford, Hughes Aircraft Co. Lib., Los Angeles
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
This is a spare, modern tale with realistic characters and a suspenseful plot that turns on a single fateful incident. Joanie, a third-generation Italian Catholic whose husband abruptly left her, is driving her son, Todd, home from his confirmation party at her parents' house. She has the radio cranked up high and is speeding when out of nowhere a man appears in the road before them. They hit him. Joanie gets out to investigate and finds that the man is dead. She then acts indecisively: leaving the scene of the crime, circling back, heading home, picking up the phone to call the police, and hanging up again. Her moral evasiveness puts Todd into a state of anguish and estranges him from his mother, as well as turning the two of them into complicit partners with a deadly secret--and one that has the power to kill again. Eleven-year-old Todd, Joanie, Joanie's mother, and Joanie's long-time admirer Bruno alternate with a third-person narrator to tell the story, which is at once morbid and gripping. Anne Gendler
Review
“Shepard’s a remarkable story teller.” —The Washington Post Book World
“A superb thriller.” —Elle
“Shepard takes the suspense right down to the wire; the final paragraph is a knockout. . . . Grab this one.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Real human tragedy. A compelling and disturbing novel.” —School Library Journal
About the Author
Jim Shepard (b. 1956) is the author of four short story collections and seven novels, most recently The Book of Aron, which has been shortlisted for both the Kirkus Prize and the American Library Association Andrew Carnegie Medal. Originally from Connecticut, Shepard now lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts. He is the J. Leland Miller Professor of English at Williams College, where he teaches creative writing and film. He won the Story Prize for his collection Like You’d Understand, Anyway, which was also a finalist for the National Book Award. Shepard’s stories have appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, the Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Magazine, and McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, among other publications; five have been selected for the Best American Short Stories, two for the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and one for a Pushcart Prize.
