The Life We Bury
A USA Today bestseller and book club favorite! College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran--and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home, after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder. As Joe writes about Carl's life, especially Carl's valor in Vietnam, he cannot reconcile the heroism of the soldier with the despicable acts of the convict. Joe, along with his skeptical female neighbor, throws himself into uncovering the truth, but he is hamstrung in his efforts by having to deal with his dangerously dysfunctional mother, the guilt of leaving his autistic brother vulnerable, and a haunting childhood memory. Thread by thread, Joe unravels the tapestry of Carl's conviction. But as he and Lila dig deeper into the circumstances of the crime, the stakes grow higher. Will Joe discover the truth before it's too late to escape the fallout?
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Community Reviews
The first half of this story is a riveting page turner but then it falls away to cliche. Such a shame.
I really liked the plot, characters, and writing style. A bit to clean and neat plot-wise, with predictable turns (no twists at all) and stupid character decisions made by Joe throughout. I also didn't like Joe very much in general, especially how he initially talks to Lila and even once traps her in his apartment, preventing her from leaving so he can keep talking to her. Huge red flag. I did think it was good enough to check out the next in the series, though.
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