The Lifelong Impact of Tragedy
(NOTE: Some of the links in this blog are affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase on Amazon. Thank you for supporting my writing in this manner. More details here.)
*****
This book opens in the summer of 1985 with three teenagers in a car together. Fifteen-year-old Theo Wilf is at the wheel, though he does not know how to drive. His seventeen-year-old sister, Sarah, is in the back seat, slightly buzzed and thinking it might be safer for him to drive. Or maybe she’s helping him to appear cool in the eyes of the third passenger, Misty Zimmerman, a neighborhood girl.
Life changes for all of them when Theo crashes the car into a huge oak tree right in front of the Wilf home. Their dad, a doctor, rushes out at the sound of the impact and is relieved to see his kids get out of the car, safe! But then he sees Misty, bleeding profusely in the front seat of the car. He tries to save her, but is unsuccessful.
Sarah immediately claims to have been at the wheel, and Theo does not correct her. The dad, who saw the location from which each of his kids exited the car, does not correct her. And then there are the police, who do not question it at all, nor do they do a breathalyzer on Sarah, they just assume it to be a tragic accident.
Clearly, this was a horrible situation, and it was made even more unbearable when the parents, Mimi and Ben Wilf, decided that the accident would never be discussed. A large part of the rest of the book shows the effect of this “secret” on the whole family as we watch them from 1985 through 2020.
I found this book to be very compelling. I liked all of the characters; I wanted to see how they fared through the decades, and I rooted for them every inch of the way.
As a note to the structure of the book, the author does not tell the story chronologically. Instead, she bounces around in time. Wherever she lands, there is a section with that date and then there are sub-sections in which we learn about the key players at that point in their history. In this manner, she visits 1999, 2010, 2014, and 2020. There is a significant character and second plotline added in 1999, when a child, Waldo Shenkman, is born in the house across the street from the Wilfs. I liked him, worried about him, and rooted for him too.
And I guess that is the true strength of the book: terrific characters about whom I cared. The book is only 223 pages long. I could have read more!
*****
If you like my writing, did you know I have four books in print? They are all available on my Etsy shop. My newest book, Love, Loss, and Moving On, is also available on Amazon. Please have a look and tell a friend!
Leave a Reply