The drama of Penitence, by Kristin Koval, pulls you in immediately. The story opens right after Angie and David’s 13-year-old daughter, Nora, shoots their 14-year-old brother, Nico, to death, then calls 911, then stops speaking to any one. The only lawyer in town is Martine, the mother of Angie’s ex-boyfriend, Julian. Julian also happens to a successful lawyer, who comes back from NYC to help defend Nora. As the characters try to understand and cope with what’s happened.

The pacing is weird, but I can’t quite put my finger on what wasn’t working for me. There’s a lot of repetition, and a jerky back-and-forth between different timelines and viewpoints. For example, Angie keeps saying how her kids were so close, and how maybe she could have spent more time with Nora.  This makes sense for Angie’s character, naturally she’s thinking constantly on the shooting and trying to make sense of it, but it’s not compelling reading after we’ve been over it 10,000 times. Another example of weird repetition is how everyone in the novel thinks and talks about how difficult Livia, Angie’s mother, could be. Again, it makes perfect sense for everyone in the small town to know this and everyone who encountered her to think about this… but it’s not interesting to read over and over. 

This repetition makes some of the reveals feel strange, too. We readers know Nico was suffering from a rare disease that no one else in the family has, so when there’s a big paternity shock for characters, it’s the opposite of shocking for readers. It was interesting who announces it to whom, at least. 

There is a rhythmic feel to Penitence, with each chapter ending on a different character musing on their life. Some of these are natural and moving, and some of them felt like  heavy-handed, freshman-comp symbols. The moments felt realistic for each character  — it made perfect sense for Julian to look out over the mass of lights representing all the human stories in NYC, or for Nora to crumple up her artwork — but knowing that each chapter was going to end on an Important Symbol added to the strange uneven pacing, which detracted from the story. 

Overall, I had the strange feeling that I was reading a jerky rough draft of an amazing future novel. There’s a real eye for detail here, and the narrative explores forgiveness in different forms, for different characters, without an easy resolution. But strange pacing and a few heavy-handed moments kept me from falling fully into the story.   

I received a free copy of this book from Celadon to review. Opinions on my book blog are my own, as always.