by Carol Anshaw
First published 2012
Carmen's wedding reception ends in tragedy when a car full of drunk and stoned guests strikes and kills a young girl on a dark country road. The accident binds Carmen and her siblings in shared guilt that will shape the next twenty-five years of their lives. As the decades pass, the three connect and drift apart and find each other again, each carrying the weight of that night differently. One sibling thrives while another spirals into self-destruction, but their fates remain intertwined by the memory of the girl they killed. Through marriages, divorces, parenthood, and the small victories and defeats of ordinary life, they discover how deeply one moment can alter everything that follows. Carol Anshaw traces the long arc of consequence, showing how a single night of poor choices ripples forward through time, binding people together in ways both painful and redemptive.
Genres: literary-fiction, tragedy, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Country Road
Period: 25 Years
253 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster
Content warnings: death