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Publisher<\/p>\n
Marysue Rucci Books<\/p>\n
\n\t \t\t\tCorby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that’s before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness and elemental kinship with a prison librarian who sees his light and some of his fellow offenders, including a tender-hearted cellmate and a troubled teen desperate for a role model. Buoyed by them and by his mother’s enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. Can his crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves?\t \t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t \tWhat The Reviewers Say\n\t <\/p>\n
Pivots sharply from the domestic sphere \u2014 where it\u2019s initially so dramatic \u2014 to prison, with all the limits that a penitentiary setting imposes … amb doesn\u2019t push very hard against the bars of what we already know from various movies and TV shows, and the plot sometimes stalls in the slough of Corby\u2019s years-long sentence until orange is the new slack. Indeed, when Corby is denied early parole, I think I felt even more disappointed than he did … We\u2019re trapped in his mind. And he\u2019s no King Lear. He simply doesn\u2019t have \u2014 and never attains \u2014 the agonizing self-knowledge that would enable him to respond sufficiently to the existential quandary of this catastrophe … To offer us catharsis, we need a narrator capable of drawing us beyond the limited prison palette of a grieving father\u2019s sentimental mural into a truly astonishing vista of his sorrow and atonement.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\tRead Full Review >><\/a><\/p>\n All of this should make for a compelling saga, but the fly in the ointment is that Corby is a narcissistic character less concerned with the enormity of his transgression than with how he can return everything to normal … I have no doubt that Lamb worked hard to faithfully reflect what he\u2019s gleaned about prison life, and has great sympathy for his character\u2019s plights. Yet much of what occurs feels cliched, as does much of the language and dialogue … Is more than 400 pages long, yet the ending feels like an afterthought, wrapping up loose ends without satisfying the reader. To reveal Corby\u2019s fate would be a spoiler, but what disappointed me was the absence of an authentic epiphany; I was left feeling I\u2019d spent years with a man who never truly reckoned with his regrets or learned from his mistakes.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\tRead Full Review >><\/a><\/p>\n There are no simple resolutions in this gripping drama, and Lamb offers plenty to ponder about guilt, innocence, rehabilitation, and forgiveness.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\tRead Full Review >><\/a><\/p>\n