While traveling in Italy in 1980, the twenty-two-year-old eldest daughter of the Woodhull family is killed in a terrorist attack. Her parents live in rural Illinois. Her father,“Woody” Woodhull, is a college professor whose life goes off the rails in the aftermath of the tragedy. Her mother has a breakdown and joins a convent. The book is told in alternating perspectives of Woody and middle daughter, Sarah.
I liked the writing style and Sarah’s chapters. The narrative related to a family divided by grief is heartbreaking. Woody’s chapters are too disturbing for my taste (horrific injuries from a terrorist attack, an affair between a professor and student, and many graphic sex scenes). I have enjoyed other novels by this author, but this one is not for me.
While traveling in Italy in 1980, the twenty-two-year-old eldest daughter of the Woodhull family is killed in a terrorist attack. Her parents live in rural Illinois. Her father,“Woody” Woodhull, is a college professor whose life goes off the rails in the aftermath of the tragedy. Her mother has a breakdown and joins a convent. The book is told in alternating perspectives of Woody and middle daughter, Sarah.
I liked the writing style and Sarah’s chapters. The narrative related to a family divided by grief is heartbreaking. Woody’s chapters are too disturbing for my taste (horrific injuries from a terrorist attack, an affair between a professor and student, and many graphic sex scenes). I have enjoyed other novels by this author, but this one is not for me.