First published 1997
A school bus carrying children from Sam Dent crashes on a winter day, killing fourteen young passengers. The tragedy shatters the small town as parents, neighbors, and survivors struggle with an impossible question: who bears responsibility when the unthinkable occurs? Different voices emerge from the wreckage. Some seek someone to blame. Others search for meaning in senseless loss. The accident exposes hidden fractures in relationships and forces each person to confront how they will carry on. Banks examines how a community processes collective trauma, revealing both the fragility and resilience of human connections. At its heart, this is a story about how people navigate the aftermath of devastating loss and what it means to continue living when life feels irreparably broken.
Genres: fiction, drama, literary-fiction, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: grief, tragedy
Setting: Sam Dent
Period: 20th-century
272 pages · Paperback · Vintage Canada
Content warnings: child-death