Publishers Weekly, starred review ( read the full review) “ masterful debut satisfying resolution.” Winner-Silver Falchion Award, Best First Novel: traditionalįinalist-Minnesota Book Award, Best Genre Fictionįinalist-Thriller Award, Best First Novelīest Books of 2014 (debut), Suspense MagazineĪmazon Editor’s Pick, “Books We Loved” 2014 Winner-Barry Award, Best Paperback Original Novel

Winner-Rosebud Award, Best First Mystery Novel But in the end, it is the bond between Joe and his brother Jeremy that gives this novel its big (albeit tormented) heart. The Life We Bury is full of tension, twists and turns, and has a powerful, climactic ending sure to gratify. The power of that guilt weighs heavily upon Joe and will demand a resolution of its own. Throughout the novel, Joe has to intercede to protect his brother and is conflicted every time he has to once again leave his brother behind. Joe is torn by the guilt of going to college and abandoning his brother. To complicate things, Joe’s bi-polar, alcoholic mother has taken up with a low-life who hits Joe’s eighteen-year-old autistic brother.

Carl agrees to tell Joe his story, and Joe sets out to unravel the tapestry of the thirty-year-old murder. At a nursing home he meets Carl Iverson, a man dying of cancer who has been medically paroled after spending thirty years in prison for the murder of a fourteen-year-old girl. The Life We Bury tells the story of Joe Talbert, a junior at the University of Minnesota, who receives a class assignment to write a biography of someone who has lived an interesting life.

The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens