Reservation Road

One summer night, a family is driving home from a concert. They stop at a gas station to use the restroom. In a freak accident, Josh, the ten year old son, is struck by a passing car and killed. The driver is a man hurrying his son back to his mother from a baseball game. He only has visiting hours on Sundays and they are late. In a split-second decision, Dwight, a man with a temper and a checkered history of abuse, decides not to stop. Leaving behind a family broken by grief and loss.

The rest of the story deals with the aftermath. Ethan, Grace, and Emma each feel guilty for Josh's death. The guilt drives wedges between them all. Meanwhile, Dwight is truly guilt ridden as well, miserable, but helpless to change his situation. If the show more truth comes out, he will never see his son again. This novel is gritty in its painfully realistic look at tragedy. It's haunting characters and plot will follow you long after you put the book down. show less

Reservation Road is a heartbreaking story of family love and loss. Told from the perspective of three characters, the parents of a deceased son and the hit and run driver who killed him, it explores these characters exquisitely. These are not bad people; they are simply flawed, as are all humans, and here thrust into circumstances that stress their weaknesses - to a breaking point. The author draws these characters with such empathy that you feel their grief and their struggles, share their fragilities and rejoice in their survival.

The ending was a bit unsatisfactory to me, but overall, a fine, captivating story.

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

So yes, the entire reason this eight-year-old novel came to my attention recently is because of the high-profile movie adaptation that just came out, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Ruffalo and Jennifer Connelly; and yes, the reason I decided to read it after having it brought to my attention is because it's apparently a complex tale concerning the futility of revenge, and I like complex tales concerning the futility of revenge. More specifically, it's the story of mousy New England dad Ethan, whose son is accidentally hit and killed by show more reckless fellow New England dad Dwight, but with Dwight bolting and running instead of doing the right thing ethically and stopping. As the plot brings the two fathers closer and closer together (Dwight's a lawyer, see, and at a certain point is actually hired by Ethan to help him track down his son's killer), the story really becomes an intense character study of these two grieving, deeply flawed males, and how they let such base human emotions as anger, guilt and obsession completely subsume both their lives, for different reasons and with different results, both bad.

But it's been a couple of weeks now since I read the novel, and frankly even now I'm having trouble recalling many of its details; it's one of those books, not that bad but not that memorable either, kinda like the guiding principles behind the programming staff of the Lifetime cable network. I do remember this very specifically, though, that I was disappointed with the ending; without going into detail, let's just say that I had been led to believe that Reservation Road examines the issue of revenge in an unexpectedly complicated and unique way, while I found the reality to be a lot more ho-hum and not very illuminating at all. The book ends the exact way you expect a Lifetime cable movie to end; again, not in a bad way, but rather in a way that everyone can already guess, and in a way that makes you wonder why this book has gotten all the hype it has. It's a nicely written mainstream novel that's deeper than the usual supermarket fare, but that ultimately isn't too challenging; a perfect recommendation for suburban friends and relatives who flinch nervously at the sound of the word "cutting-edge."

Out of 10: 7.8 show less

The plotting became a little forced to me, but the passages describing how individuals deal with tragic loss and regret make up for it. Some beautiful pieces in a flawed novel. I'll looking forward to reading Northwest Corner (Schwartz's new novel that follows some of these characters).

An outstanding,thought-provoking piece of writing. Told from various points of view, Schultz creates very believable characters who struggle to survive following a heartbreaking tragedy. I read this long before it was conceived as a possible motion picture script, but it is difficult to imagine that it will translate well into film.

This was a depressing book. Chapters alternate among the three main characters. It is mostly a psychological look at different ways these characters handled grief. After a 10 year old boy is killed by a hit and run driver, you can imagine the trauma of the parents and then see how the guilt is handled by the hit and run driver, who also has a boy about the same age. I kept wanting more action as I went through the book, but the author makes you wait until the very end before there is any real drama. The story does build and there is suspense as the two fathers get closer and closer to meeting. I rented the movie and was thoroughly disappointed. They changed some circumstances and made it highly unbelievable in my opinion.

A family faces the death of their 10-year-old son in a tragic hit-and-run accident. The perpetrator's already-troubled life comes apart as he tries to cover his crime while coming to terms with what he has done. Very well-done novel depicting realistic families and a realistic view of grief.