Accountability - A Punishment or a Choice?
My debut novel, OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN, was about expectations, and explored how different people react when their reality doesn’t match what they expected from their lives. My second novel, LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED, which releases on March 5th, is about accountability.
Four 18-year-old boys do something terrible. They get away with it, but their friendship shatters. The novel opens when one of them dies thirty years later, and the other three meet again at the funeral. They also meet the dead man’s wife, who is a reporter and determined to make them pay for what they’ve done.
For me, the story is less about that long-ago crime and more about the way that its suppression affects the men who committed it. Their lives and relationships are warped by it. Their wives and children feel its heavy presence even when they know nothing about it. And the story explores if true accountability can be demanded by others or whether it must be chosen by the guilty. The most important question: will the acceptance of accountability help these men repair their lives and their most important relationships?
Four 18-year-old boys do something terrible. They get away with it, but their friendship shatters. The novel opens when one of them dies thirty years later, and the other three meet again at the funeral. They also meet the dead man’s wife, who is a reporter and determined to make them pay for what they’ve done.
For me, the story is less about that long-ago crime and more about the way that its suppression affects the men who committed it. Their lives and relationships are warped by it. Their wives and children feel its heavy presence even when they know nothing about it. And the story explores if true accountability can be demanded by others or whether it must be chosen by the guilty. The most important question: will the acceptance of accountability help these men repair their lives and their most important relationships?
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