Meredith tragically loses her eldest son, her husband and sister-in-law in a car accident. Unimaginable. Ten years later, her youngest son is arrested for murder. Even more unimaginable. I can't begin to embrace how someone can process this. Fate intervened where the accident was concerned, but a killer son? A parent must ask him/herself so many questions. What did I miss, was it my fault, where did I go wrong, why did I not see what my son was like… Meredith's nephew, Curtis, the son of the sister-in-law who died in the car accident tries to help his aunt through this trauma. But he has the same issues to process: his mother dying in an accident, then discovering ten years later, his cousin is a merciless killer.
This was a very ambitious plot to pack into a novella, but I think it was a little too big for the length of the story. It was written in the first person, from Meredith's POV. Personally, I don't think this worked. There was much to explore in Curtis, much to explore in Percy. This couldn't be done first person POV unless their POVs were tackled in separate chapters and that might have congested this short story.
This was a very ambitious plot to pack into a novella, but I think it was a little too big for the length of the story. It was written in the first person, from Meredith's POV. Personally, I don't think this worked. There was much to explore in Curtis, much to explore in Percy. This couldn't be done first person POV unless their POVs were tackled in separate chapters and that might have congested this short story.
That said, there was time enough to appreciate Coffin's skill as a writer and despite the aforementioned issues, there was also time to enjoy the novella.
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