Flesh Wounds

The Story

When the police come to arrest Minneapolis salesman Hal Lamm for molesting his thirteen-year-old granddaughter, his whole family is compelled to face its secrets and unhealed wounds. His wife, Phyllis, after decades of denial and emotional estrangement, draws closer to her children and finds the strength to confront her husband. His daughter, Ellie, had relished her distance from her parents, but now discovers strength in the midst of her troubled family. Cal is an attorney whose first instinct is to defend Hal -- until he becomes a father himself. Most poignant of all is the story of Becky, Hal's granddaughter: unconsoled by the parties and presents her parents give her, and suspicious of the therapist she is required to visit, she keeps her rage hidden -- and nearly tears herself apart. Written with genuine empathy, Flesh Wounds grips the reader and doesn't let go until its climax of hard-earned reconciliation.