A stepfather kills fourteen people. His stepson digs into why.
Who drives the story
Seventeen, works at a grocery store, raised by Jesse and Brenda. He wants to understand the stepfather who killed fourteen people—and survives the answer, panic attacks, therapy, and all.
Dills's stepfather, a Canadian peacekeeper haunted by Bosnia who commits a mass shooting and suicide. Dead before page one, he exists through a letter, a journal, and the memories of the woman he saved and failed.
A survivor of the Stara Gora massacre, scarred and living in Toronto. She first turns Dills away, then becomes his only source of the truth—both the rescue and the killing.
Dills's mother, Jesse's widow. She knew about the PTSD but not the war, and faces the victims' families' anger and a possible lawsuit.
Dills's best friend, daughter of a lawyer. She drives him to Toronto, stands with him at the grave and the lake, and stays.
Also in the story
Dills's therapist, the person to whom Dills first admits he doesn't know who he is anymore.
How they are connected
Seventeen, works at a grocery store, raised by Jesse and Brenda.
Seventeen, works at a grocery store, raised by Jesse and Brenda.
She first turns Dills away, then becomes his only source of the truth—both the rescue and the killing.
Dills's mother, Jesse's widow.
Dills's best friend, daughter of a lawyer.
Dills's therapist, the person to whom Dills first admits he doesn't know who he is anymore.
Go deeper
Inherited guilt · The war that never ends · Context without excuses · Holding two truths
Themes explainedThe full story act by act, the ending explained and a quick quiz.
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