I usually take home grocery store books as comfort food. Rarely have I brought home those which are thoughtful and provocative, but “Entertainment Weekly” had given this one a short cover blurb. NINETEEN MINUTES is about the relationships illuminated and changed by a high school shooting spree. In this multi-viewpoint book, two pairs of mothers and children vibrate at the core.
Peter Houghton is the shooter at the school, a lonely bullied boy who strikes back viciously. Lacy Houghton, his midwife mom, is as horrified as anyone else at the shooting. She continuously struggles to understand her son's actions and second-guesses every minute she's ever spent with him. (Wouldn't you?) Alex Cormier is the judge who'll preside over Peter's trial. Lacy delivered her daughter, Josie, with whom the icy career woman has been estranged. Now Alex struggles to comfort her wounded daughter.
Josie and Peter used to be friends, until Josie rejected the always-awkward boy to join the popular crowd. When the detective investigating the shooting finds Peter's yearbook with his victim's faces circled, Josie's is the only one circled, then crossed out, with "Let Live" next to it.
Lacy's self-lacerating thoughts are especially compelling. Did she push him too much? Compare him too much to his golden brother? Not monitor his computer use enough? Leave him too much alone? When the shooting victims are evacuated, their foreheads are numbered with a Sharpie marker to aid in identification. There's no such mark for a killer, and anyone who's ever nervously watched a moody teen, or been one, will identify with that.
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