5 STARS – A masterfully told tale, flawlessly written with authentic characters, brimming with drama and reality.

A masterfully told tale, flawlessly written with authentic characters, brimming with drama and reality.

A 21-year-old woman leaves a New Year’s Eve party after a spat with her boyfriend.

At about the same time and very inebriated man leaves another party to head home. The two of them meet on a dark street, she while walking in a crosswalk, he in a speeding luxury vehicle.

After the impact, he leaves the scene to make the necessary arrangements to keep his life intact while she lies dying on the roadside. He never even gets out of the vehicle.

In She Tumbled Down, author Lorraine Devon Wilke asks, “What kind of person could do such a thing…hit someone then just drive away?” and then she goes on to answer it.

Told from the point of view of the perpetrator, Wilke enters into his world of rationalization and justification. As the story unfolds and three years pass, the reader is brought to the brink of empathy, just as the woman who has fallen in love with him is when he confesses to her. He’s repentant, he helps others, he tries to be the best person he can be, admitting his crime now would do more harm than good.

What should she do? What would you do?

This is a masterfully told tale, flawlessly written with authentic characters and brimming with dramatic reality. A remarkable achievement in the difficult genre of the short story.