The Amateur, Bohjalian - B

                  The author ranges far and wide, and here treats us to a memoir novel narrated in the first person by a very successful author in her sixties. At a golf club in Westchester, NY, in 1978, she is 18 and slams a drive into a practice net. The ball goes through and kills 17-year-old Kenny Foster, a caddy. She is crushed, goes off the deep end, and significantly increases her alcohol and drug usage. Her escapades with a married man older than her dad are exposed by the victim's father, and she is soon persona non grata in the town she grew up in. She quits golf and defers Yale. Soon, she is investigated, and the police conclude she altered the net and was negligently responsible for Kenny's death. Her secrets are outed a year later, and she has to leave Smith without finishing the first semester. She remains overwhelmed by guilt. Meeting the right man begins to help, and the dramatic courtroom conclusion leads to a dismissal. The book plumbs complex issues of guilt, manipulation, sexual abuse, and trauma.