Opening
A last-minute college assignment pushes Joe Talbert into the orbit of Carl Iverson, a dying, convicted murderer—and into a collision with his own tangled past. When Joe’s alcoholic mother is jailed, he becomes caretaker to his autistic brother, forcing him to juggle school, work, and a story that refuses to fit the official record.
What Happens
Chapter 1: The Assignment
Racing a deadline for a biography project, Joe heads to Hillview Manor, a bleak nursing home, to interview a stranger. The director warns that most residents have dementia, but the receptionist, Janet, quietly offers another option: Carl Iverson, paroled to the facility because of terminal pancreatic cancer—and convicted three decades earlier of raping and murdering a fourteen-year-old girl, whose body he burned in a shed. Joe recoils, then recognizes he has no time or better choice.
Before he can meet Carl, a drunken call from Joe’s mother, Kathy Nelson, detonates a crisis: she’s been arrested for DUI and will be held for days. Joe immediately drives two hours to Austin to collect his younger brother, Jeremy Talbert, leaving his information so Hillview can ask Carl about the interview. The chapter anchors Joe in the pull and pain of Family Dysfunction and Responsibility and the heavy Burdens of the Past that shape every choice he makes.
Chapter 2: Spam Town
On the road to “Spam Town,” Joe sifts through childhood debris: long nights babysitting Jeremy while still a child himself; their mother’s volatility; and a memory that brands him with shame. Annoyed by the looping soundtrack of The Lion King, Joe once shoved Jeremy, who fell and was cut by a broken picture frame. Jeremy looked up not with anger but baffled hurt—an image that never lets Joe go. When their mother returned, she berated Joe not for the injury but for using a “good towel,” deepening his self-loathing and sense of moral failure.
At the apartment, Jeremy—eighteen now, anchored by routine—watches Pirates of the Caribbean. Joe shields him from the truth with an old euphemism: their mom is at a “long meeting.” Jeremy balks at leaving home, but Joe reframes the trip to Minneapolis as an adventure: they’ll be Jack Sparrow and Will Turner. Trusting Joe, Jeremy agrees. Joe packs for several days, preparing to shoulder two lives at once.
Chapter 3: An Unlikely Neighbor
Driving back, Joe catalogues their mother’s unraveling—likely undiagnosed bipolar disorder compounded by alcohol after Grandpa Bill’s death. The violence escalated from verbal abuse to physical blows, until eighteen-year-old Joe found her striking Jeremy with a shoe. He shoved her onto a bed until she passed out, awakening to a fact he can’t unknow: he can’t leave Jeremy in her care again.
At Joe’s cramped second-floor place, the bathroom across the hall upsets Jeremy’s routines. Joe braces his brother on the stairs when a neighbor—known only as “L. Nash” from her mailbox—rounds the landing and drawls, “I’m sure that line worked for Jeffrey Dahmer, too.” Later, Joe erases a barrage of manipulative voice mails from his mother. A final message from Hillview brings relief: Carl agrees to talk. Joe feels a tailwind at his back, unaware of where it will carry him.
Chapter 4: The Archive
Pressed for time and unable to ignore his responsibilities, Joe ducks into the university’s microfilm archive, a hush of whirring reels and old newsprint. There, he unearths October 1980 coverage: the burned remains of fourteen-year-old Crystal Marie Hagen found in a tool shed in Northeast Minneapolis—property of her neighbor, Carl Iverson. Crystal lived with her mother and stepfamily: stepfather Douglas Lockwood and stepbrother Dan Lockwood.
A photo arrests Joe more than any headline: a barefoot Carl, flanked by officers, wearing not guilt or bravado but bewilderment. That expression plants a persistent doubt. The official story looks airtight, but the human face inside it complicates Truth, Lies, and Perception.
Chapter 5: Lila
Joe returns home to a surprise: his neighbor, now introduced as Lila Nash, sits beside Jeremy, both laughing at Pirates of the Caribbean. Jeremy had switched the TV input by accident; the static sent him into distress. Hearing the commotion, Lila stepped in, fixed the issue, and stayed. Warm where she once seemed cutting, she explains she has an autistic cousin and immediately understands Jeremy’s needs.
Flustered and charmed, Joe invites her to dinner in thanks. Lila’s guard snaps up—she’s “not looking for anything right now.” Joe pivots, claiming it’s for Jeremy since he liked her company. Her smile returns at his awkwardness; she teases him for trying to “pimp [his] brother out” and agrees to one dinner—“for Jeremy.” Joe ends the night with a tentative ally and a first glimpse at a life that could be kinder than the one he knows.
Character Development
Across these chapters, characters reveal who they are under stress: Joe as a protector shaped by guilt, Jeremy as trusting and routine-bound, Lila as both guarded and compassionate, and Carl as a riddle whose public label doesn’t match his photographed face.
- Joe Talbert: Moves from procrastinating student to decisive caregiver, choosing Jeremy over convenience. His shame over past harm fuels his need to “do right” now, even when the cost is high.
- Jeremy Talbert: Dependable in his preferences and deeply loyal to Joe, he adapts when given structure and story (the “adventure” frame).
- Lila Nash: Initially prickly, she quickly demonstrates competence, empathy, and firm boundaries—suggesting a hard-won self-protectiveness.
- Carl Iverson: Introduced as a monstrous figure by reputation, he appears in records as flatly guilty, yet his confused arrest photo hints at complexity beneath the verdict.
Themes & Symbols
The family plotline centers on duty and damage. Joe’s life contracts around caretaking, the essence of Family Dysfunction and Responsibility—he parents his brother while absorbing the fallout of a mother he cannot fix. Those burdens amplify his need for control, discipline, and truth, even as his past mistakes with Jeremy shadow his choices.
Running in parallel, the emerging investigation questions what anyone can know for sure. Doubt creeps in through small cracks—an expression in a photo, a quiet inconsistency—foregrounding how narratives are constructed and how perception warps them. The microfilm archive becomes a symbol of buried lives and second chances: a “tabernacle” of memory where forgotten facts wait for someone to look again.
Key Quotes
“I’m sure that line worked for Jeffrey Dahmer, too.”
- L. Nash’s barb reframes Joe’s struggle with Jeremy as potential menace, exposing how easily outsiders misread neurodivergent behavior—and foreshadowing the novel’s fixation on snap judgments versus truth.
“Long meeting.”
- Joe’s euphemism for his mother’s arrests and absences reveals the protective fictions he builds around Jeremy. The lie shields and isolates, capturing the moral trade-offs of caretaking inside a chaotic family.
Joe describes the microfilm archive as a “tabernacle.”
- This single word elevates research into ritual. It turns old news into sacred text and positions Joe as a seeker, not merely a student, foreshadowing the spiritual weight of uncovering what really happened in 1980.
Lila says she’s “not looking for anything right now.”
- Her boundary draws a hard line between friendliness and vulnerability, signaling a past that requires caution. It also forces Joe to recalibrate from romance to respect—and to earn trust.
One dinner—“for Jeremy.”
- The pretext underscores Jeremy’s role as bridge between people. What begins as a dodge becomes a genuine connection point, shaping the support system Joe will need for both his family and his investigation.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters lock the story into a twin track: Joe’s investigation into Carl’s conviction and Joe’s reckoning with the home he carries inside him. The assignment isn’t just homework—it’s the catalyst that forces Joe to test whether compassion and inquiry can pierce inherited damage and public narrative. Jeremy and Lila widen Joe’s world just as his mother and Carl’s case close in, ensuring that every clue unearthed in the archive has a cost in his living room—and that the truth he seeks about others will reflect back on the truth he owes himself.