Kiss of the WolfJoanie Mucherino, whose husband suddenly abandoned her and her eleven-year-old son, Todd, is trying to cope while dealing with her comically tactless and intrusive Italian family. To complicate matters, Joanie is now "available" in the eyes of Bruno Minea, a family friend whose twenty-year passion for her has been unwavering and faintly frightening. All of these relationships are transformed when Joanie and Todd kill an acquaintance in a hit-and-run accident and then discover - step by step, to their horror - that they will keep their act a secret. It soon becomes clear to Joanie and Todd that they have, through this accident and the chain of events in its aftermath, connected themselves to something thoroughly sinister. What follows brings into focus intense conflicts as large as those between religion and individual responsibility and as particular as those between mother and son. Joanie is forced to reassess her capacity for wrongdoing and, most important, forced to see that she is capable of being the architect of her son's own anguished guilt and silence. In his most spare and suspenseful novel, Jim Shepard brilliantly chronicles one woman's irreparable position, confronting us with the most disastrous inclinations of the human heart. |
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asked Audrey better Brendan Bruno called church closed coffee coming crossed didn't door everything eyes face father feel feet felt figured finally fingers floor front garage Gary gave getting give gonna gotta hair hand happened head hear heard helmet holding hung imagined Joanie keep killed kitchen knew leaned leave legs light listened living looked minute Monteleone mother mouth moved Nancy never night Nina nodded okay once opened picked play police pulled remember running Sandro seemed side sitting someone sound standing started stay stood stopped sure talk tell thing thought Todd Todd's told Tommy took tried trying turned voice waiting walked watched What's window worried Yeah