The Birdbath

Abstract

The following is an in-progress novel that explores whether amends can be made for a long-ago wrongdoing. The story is told by a nameless narrator who, as a child, abandoned the first friend he ever made, Joseph Longo. His project of amends is to recount Joseph’s family tragedy: A car accident that claimed Joseph’s brother. This recounting is done many years after the fact and is pieced together with only a few bits of memory, and otherwise imagination. After trying to explain how this tragedy came to pass, the novel returns to the narrator, who then attempts to reconcile whether this project of amends was sufficient, and whether it was self-serving.