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.
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