The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens (2014)
A story of troubled individuals and their search for the truth.
Laura’s Rating: 4.5/5 Stars
Plot: Joe Talbert is tasked with writing a biography of a stranger for his college English course. He chooses Carl, a dying Vietnam veteran convicted of murdering a young girl 30 years earlier. He struggles to make sense of Carl’s heroism in contrast to his heinous crime and ends up on a quest to uncover the truth about what happened 30 years ago.
Opinion: The first chapter or so was pretty slow, but before I knew it, I was hooked. Joe is a layered character, trying to survive college while juggling work, an addict mother, and an autistic younger brother. He isn’t necessarily heroic, but the odds stacked against him make him someone you find yourself rooting for. His neighbor, Lila, is charming and adds a feminine presence to this otherwise gritty novel. The book reads a bit like true crime, despite being fictional.
This book is pretty dark in some places. As a warning, certain scenes are graphic and upsetting. There’s detailed descriptions of a body at a crime scene and accounts of sexual assault, plus there is a chapter that recounts Carl’s time in Vietnam, which is pretty tough to read.
While parts of The Life We Bury are brutal, the story is engaging and interesting and I really liked the book. It totally sucked me in and I could not put it down (I finished it in two days). I’d recommend it for fans of thrillers and mysteries.
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