Monday, Monday: A Novel
Sarah Crichton Books, April 2014
In this gripping, emotionally charged novel, a tragedy in Texas changes the course of three lives
On an oppressively hot Monday in August of 1966, a student and former marine named Charles Whitman hauled a footlocker of guns to the top of the University of Texas tower and began firing on pedestrians below. Before it was over, sixteen people had been killed and thirty-two wounded. It was the first mass shooting of civilians on a campus in American history.
Monday, Monday follows three students caught up in the massacre: Shelly, who leaves her math class and walks directly into the path of the bullets, and two cousins, Wyatt and Jack, who heroically rush from their classrooms to help the victims. On this searing day, a relationship begins that will eventually entangle these three young people in a forbidden love affair, an illicit pregnancy, and a vow of secrecy that will span forty years. Reunited decades after the tragedy, they will be forced to confront the event that changed their lives and that has silently and persistently ruled the lives of their children.
With electrifying storytelling and the powerful sense of destiny found in Ann Patchett's Bel Canto, and with the epic sweep of Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins, Elizabeth Crook's Monday, Monday explores the ways in which we sustain ourselves and one another when the unthinkable happens. At its core, it is the story of a woman determined to make peace with herself, with the people she loves, and with a history that will not let her go. A humane treatment of a national tragedy, it marks a generous and thrilling new direction for a gifted American writer.
Hardcover | ISBN: 9780374228828 | Publication Date: April 2014
Reviews:
"This rapturous novel starts with one of the most heinous shootings in history, yet every page shines with life. Crook follows three students who endured the tragedy as they grapple with the past, struggle to navigate their futures, and discover that who and what saves us is nothing like what you imagine.
Brilliantly realized and so vivid the novel seems to virtually
breathe, Monday, Monday is a stunning achievement."
-- Caroline Leavitt, New York Timesbestselling
author ofIs This Tomorrow and Pictures of You
"Elizabeth Crook has written an extraordinary novel -- an eloquent
love story born from an act of random violence, a tale of
destruction and redemption. It's about making a whole life out of
a damaged one, and about holding on and letting go. The characters
are as real as people you know; their story is subtle, startling,
and wise."
-- Sarah Bird, author of The Yokota Officers Club and
Above the East China Sea
"Monday, Monday begins by throwing us into the midst of
one of the worst mass murders in American history, a scene painted
with such harrowing exactitude that it leaves you wondering how
the characters can possibly survive and how the author can
possibly sustain such a high level of narrative momentum and
emotional insight. And yet Elizabeth Crook pulls it off. This is a
brilliant and beautiful book."
-- Stephen Harrigan, author of The Gates of the Alamo
and Remember Ben Clayton
