Susan Shreve
A few years into the future… in the confusion and dread of the post 9/11 world, the tightly-knit Frayn family is insulated from the snipers, the bomb threats, and the natural disasters that plague Washington D.C…. In the moment it takes biology student Claire Frayn to dig for her umbrella, her brother Steven is shot down next to her. Each family member flees to his or her best haven: Steven’s father moves into the airplane hangar behind the house; his mother moves into the glass factory where she works; Claire adapts.
Claire sheds her measured academic persona and sets out to avenge her brother’s death. Expecting to uncover a political conspiracy aimed at her outspoken brother, Claire finds instead her family’s own darkest secrets and her true love.
A Student of Living Things is a love story in which a family finds happiness even after its worst nightmare has come true. This is a pitch-perfect, if painful, rendering of the way a family grieves and of the way violence seeps into every part of our lives.
Susan Shreve on the web.
