A Student of Living Things Hardcover - 2006

by Susan Richards Shreve

As haunting and enigmatic as a thriller, Shreve's tale of a near future evolves into a glorious meditation on love, fear, and forgiveness

In the Washington, D.C., of a near future, a city of floods and frequent terrorist bombings, the tightly knit Frayn family has carved out its own comfortable, if eccentric, existence. Then, in the moment it takes Claire Frayn to dig into her book bag for her umbrella, her brother Steven is shot down next to her on the library steps.

His murder hits the family like a hurricane. Set adrift, Claire easily falls under the influence of Victor Duarte, an enigmatic stranger who claims to know her brother's killer. But as she corresponds with the supposed criminal mastermind, a composer at a conservatory in Michigan, she finds herself increasingly apprehensive about Victor and his plans for revenge, while she is ever more drawn to the musician.

Plotted like a thriller with a startling love story at its center, this is a pitch-perfect and painful rendering of the way a family grieves and of the way public violence seeps into every part of our lives. Much like Ian McEwan's Saturday, A Student of Living Things takes on the moral, political, and philosophical questions of our time with a very intimate story about the futility of revenge and the sheer miracle of forgiveness.