Adult New Fiction Parkhurst
Octavia Frost is a novelist whose life is once again thrown upside down when her rock star son, Milo, is accused of murdering his girlfriend. Did he do it? Did he not do it? Even Milo himself is not sure. Octavia is still recovering from the pain of having lost both her husband and young daughter in a tragic accident when Milo was just 9 years old. Mother and son have become estranged ever since Milo read the line “They were exactly the wrong two to die” in one of Octavia’s novels. Octavia thought she was only writing fiction but now she’s not sure.
In what seems to be an attempt to rewrite her own history, Octavia has decided that she needs to rewrite the endings to all her previous books. Her publisher is willing to support this experiment and publish a book consisting solely of new endings. Octavia submits her new book and heads to see her son. She wants to rewrite real life, as well. Confused and in pain, Milo eventually accepts Octavia’s gentle attempts to reconcile and find out what really happened the night of his girlfriend Bettina’s murder.
Parkhurst intersperses Octavia’s new endings as chapters throughout The Nobodies Album. Sounds confusing, right? This is where Parkhurst really proves her skill as a writer. Rather than come across as confusing, they add to the story’s emotional complexity.
This is a book that works on many levels, and which convincingly explores the concepts of guilt and innocence… and forgiveness. Oh, and it’s a pretty decent little mystery, too.
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