Joe Coutts

Joe was thirteen the summer his mother was raped. Joe looks back on this summer from his late thirties and tells the story as though it happened just yesterday. This attack on his mother changed Joe’s family irrevocably, and it seemed to Joe that he was the only one who could make it right.

Joe is a typical teen with three good friends with whom he drinks and smokes cigarettes. Joe has a crush on his uncle’s girlfriend and a folder in his room where he has pictures he hides from his mother. Joe idolizes the show Star Trek: The Next Generation. He is normal in every way except for the fact that he decides to assassinate his mother’s rapist.

Joe sees how Linden Lark walking around free is affecting his family. Joe’s father has had a heart attack, and his mother is...