The Life We Bury

What drew me in initially was the murder mystery, but on its own I’m not sure that would have kept me. The crime itself isn’t especially perplexing; I correctly guessed the truth pretty early on (though, admittedly, I did let one red herring draw me briefly off course). But the book gains some depth from the parallel storylines—especially Carl’s time in Vietnam and the plight of Joe’s brother—which give the book enough depth to keep you intrigued. The combination of crime story, moral reflection, and personal drama works well. There are connections and reflections among them, so that each lends the others more weight, and the pacing is handled well enough to keep them in balance.

There are a few issues. As usual, I wasn’t show more crazy about the frame. I admit that it was necessary: Joe makes a good narrator precisely because he’s not part of the original story at all, so obviously there was going to have to be some kind of frame to bring him into that world. And he’s a fine conduit into the story. His voice feels believable, and he’s easy to spend time with. But the frame itself stretches well beyond believability, and undermines the book overall.

Then too, I have to say that Joe’s guilt narrative is pretty thin—it felt like a shallow reflection of Carl’s much more compelling, less absurd backstory. Carl’s bouts of conscience are weighty and resonant, though I couldn’t believe they would cause him to acquiesce so easily to his own conviction—especially as he knew it would let a murderer go free. It’s not hard to see, after all, that DJ’s later victims would have been saved if the truth in this case had been found. To whatever extent Carl’s docility allowed DJ to stay free, that too becomes something he has to answer for.

Also, for crying out loud, that would have been an easy “code” (actually just a very simple cipher) to crack. Supposedly they tried using the frequency-of-letters approach, but that certainly would crack such a basic cipher. You just have to suspend disbelief there; otherwise the story stops cold. To be honest, this detail alone has made me waver between three & four stars for the book. It seems unfair to dock an entire star for one plot point, but it is a point that the entire plot hangs on, and it’s sooooo weak. In the end, since I think the other plotlines are at least as important as the murder mystery, I’m going to give it a pass.

But back to what worked . . . the ending does. The red herring with the father is cleverly handled, and the step-brother’s reveal feels earned rather than artificial. The wrap-up of Joe’s own story is both believable (ish) and satisfying, as is the well-timed resolution to Carl’s. In all, it’s a better-than-average genre read, and I could see why someone might want to continue with the series. show less

The basic plot of The Life We Bury isn't new: Young man sets out to write about a dying man, learns of an injustice, clears the older man's name, and saves himself in the process. But if writing were judged solely on the uniqueness of each plot, most books would fail the test. No, the plot of The Life We Bury isn't new, but what matters is what author Allen Eskens does with it.

Joe Talbert is an extraordinary young man who desperately wants a life of his own. Unfortunately-- due to his irresponsible, alcoholic mother-- Joe has always been the parent of the family. From a young age, he's the one who's had to make sure the bills are paid, there's food on the table, the clothes are clean, and his brother Jeremy is taken care of properly. show more Joe is at the age where he feels as though he's drowning under the weight of all his responsibilities, and if anyone feels that the life of this character is unrealistic, they should feel fortunate for having led a sheltered existence.

Joe is the bright and shining light in this book, and all the other characters and all the other elements strengthen this. He may have a cast iron sense of responsibility, and that sense of decency of his may be incredible, but he's still a kid. A kid who wishes his mother would somehow magically grow up. A kid who wishes his little brother didn't need him so much. A kid who'd like to have a girlfriend and be normal instead of having so much homework and working more than one job to pay his bills and tuition. And... as most kids do... he has this belief in his own immortality which (to him) means that when he finds the dragon and goes out to slay it, the dragon will simply roll over and die without a fight.

Joe's voice carried me effortlessly through each and every page of this book. His story may have been told many times and in many ways over the centuries, but that doesn't make Allen Eskens' first book any less powerful. I look forward to his next with a great deal of anticipation. show less

For someone who is only 20 (or thereabouts) Joe Talbert has had a tough life. An absent, unknown father, a mother who has chosen alcohol and abusiveness as her means of dealing with undiagnosed mental health issues and having to be the responsible person for his autistic brother at far too young an age. Despite all this somehow Joe has managed to carve out a life – dreams even – for himself and is doing the hard graft needed to achieve them. As the novel opens he has transferred to university from community college and for one of his assignments he is required to interview an elderly person and write their story. Lacking any suitable candidates in his immediate circle Joe heads to the nearest nursing home looking for a likely show more candidate. The only person not suffering from dementia or other conditions that would make Joe’s project impossible is Carl Iverson. The man who the home’s staff wish would just pass away quickly and quietly from his pancreatic cancer because he was convicted of the rape and murder of a teenage girl three decades earlier.

The thing that struck me most about the book is that it seemed like Eskens had taken notice of all the things I’ve ever said or thought wrong about other books and written something without all those problems. Don’t worry, I’m not egocentric enough to believe that’s what has happened here but it’s the best way I have of explaining why I really loved the book.

For example, there’s no doubt that the subject matter is dark and even strays towards bleak on occasion. Fair enough too; Joe’s life is comfortingly grim and unfair especially when viewed from my relatively privileged position. And Carl Iverson’s life isn’t a walk in the park even without taking into account the hideous crime he was convicted of. But Eskens does not wallow in the bleakness, wrapping his characters in clouds of misery as so many books are want to do. There is lightness and humour and hopefulness too. For me this makes the book much more emotionally powerful than the one-note stories that seem to clutter the top of award-winning lists.

I wondered recently if I was too old to read a book featuring a 20ish protagonist because in that instance I found the character annoying and someone I couldn’t relate to on any level. But youth is not the only thing I don’t have in common with Joe Talbert yet I found him totally compelling. His trouble juggling all the elements of his life, his guilt over his own past actions and his tenacity in the face of fairly grim odds make for a really engaging mix. The other characters in the novel – including Carl and Joe’s neighbour-come-love interest Lila, are equally well drawn and credible.

Although THE LIFE WE BURY explores the theme of the secrets that everyone keeps in a very thoughtful way the book is, first and foremost, a ripper of a yarn rather than a treatise on the human condition. I won’t say more for fear of spoiling the plot but it’s not just any old book that compels me to finish it in a single siting (not counting the odd loo break). To top off all this juicy goodness the book is exactly the right length for its story and even has a satisfactory resolution. Highly recommended. show less

"The Life We Bury" is a rare thing: a thoughtful, well-written novel, with a main character who has some depth, wrapped around a satisfying mystery, that delivers an emotional punch as well as moments of tense drama.

It's also a perfect audiobook. A story told directly to the reader by the main character, "The Life We Bury" is a natural choice for an audiobook. Having the character's voice in your ear seems appropriate and brings a level of intimacy and involvement that you might not get from the text alone. In this case, the voice in my ear was Zach Via, who got everything right. He became Joe Talbot in my head. He set exactly the right tone and pace and he was also able to bring the other characters, including Lila, to life. This one show more is a treat for the ears.

So what's it about? The frame of the story is that college student, Joe Talbert, while seeking someone he can interview for a college assignment to write a piece of biography, meets dying old man, who has spent the last thirty years in prison for the rape and murder of a fourteen year old girl. As Joe captures the old man's story he begins to wonder if the conviction was valid.

A lot of novels would have stopped there. It's one of those promising premises, offering twists and turns and flashbacks, that Harlen Coben has built his career on and kept huge numbers of readers very happy with.

Allen Esken uses the mystery as a starting point to explore other questions. How should we live with the things that we've done that we are ashamed of? When we are trapped in circumstances that drag us away from what we want and who we want to be, what should we do? What do we owe to family, to friends, to strangers and to ourselves? At its heart this novel asks us to consider what it means to live an honourable life and how far that is compatible with living a happy one.

Allen Esken manages to ask those questions without retreating into either abstract philosophy or simple sentiment. His characters work it out for themselves, finding their own balance between past and present on which to build their futures.

This is an accomplished book, as either a mainstream novel or a mystery. As a debut novel it is almost intimidating. There were some points where the demand to suspend disbelief almost reached my threshold but I was so involved with the characters and the situation that I didn't mind seeing the mystery construct flex a little. There were also some points where Joe's similes and metaphors were so contrived or extended that they stood out like ink blots on the page, but I decided that they were Joe's similes and metaphors and not Allen Esken's and wrote them off as part of Joe's way of thinking.

After I've forgotten exactly how the details of the mystery worked out and why I thought which person did what, I will remember the main characters in "The Life We Bury" with fondness and compassion. What more can you ask of a mystery novel, any novel perhaps, than that?

Click on the link below to hear Zach Via narrating "The Life We Bury".




https://soundcloud.com/audiofilemagazine/the-life-we-bury-by-allan-eskens-read-b... show less

This book kind of surprised me; I didn't expect it to be so engrossing and suspenseful, even after reading a bit of it. It was interesting, but moved along a bit slowly to start. It was also pretty sad, with a few especially abhorrent people. The convicted murderer/child-molester who, after spending 30 years in prison for murdering a young girl, and released to die of cancer in hospice care, surprisingly was not one of them. The worst person, to me, was the mother of the narrator and an autistic teenaged boy. Her son had worked hard most of his life, and was working hard to put himself through college, yet she felt he was being selfish by not staying home to support her and her bad habits. She didn't care for him or his brother, and show more only cared about the social security she got for his care. She also defended her boyfriend for beating the autistic son.

Anyway, it was pretty sad for a while, but then it started getting interesting, slowly but steadily, until I couldn't stop reading. Even then, it upped the suspense more and more until the satisfying conclusion.

If you decide to read this one, which you should, don't give up too soon. show less

That was surprisingly satisfying.

I say surprisingly because I read this on a whim. Ordinarily, I don't read crime mysteries. I don't even read much contemporary fiction which I often find annoyingly yikyakky. I know it sounds like faint praise, but this novel didn't annoy me.

College student Joe Talbert, the story's narrator, is so very likeable with his self-deprecating humor, his politeness, and his fierce protection of his younger brother who has severe autism. Life hasn't been easy for him and it seems that he attracts others for whom life hasn't been easy either, good people with troubled pasts.

With Talbert as his protagonist, a cast of characters to root for, and an old solved murder that deserves a second-look, Allen Eskens show more succeeds in writing a decent mystery. And there were some exciting escapes. What more could a reader want?

I wouldn't be surprised if someone decides to make a movie out of this.

Listened via Hoopla, read by Zach Villa who gave perfect narration for the protagonist, as well as for the other characters. Praise-worthy, really. show less

Great set-up, a bit too predictable by the end.
Review of the Audible Audio edition narrated by Zach Villa

The set-up here of a college student writing about a senior's life and having it turn into the hunt to overturn an unjust criminal conviction was well done. Due to Ebert's Law of the Economy of Characters the solution was quite predictable (esp. after what seemed like a too-early climax) but was still well constructed. The narration by Zach Villa in the audiobook edition was excellent.

Minor quibble: The image of a barn in winter on the cover of most editions of this book seems to have nothing to do with the actual plot. There is a shed and a hunting cabin at different points.