*“Nine hours of surgery to salvage his bladder so it might work half as well as it did, if infections do not consume him. His prostate cut from his thin boy body, seminal vesicles too, rendering him unable to know a certain intimacy but familiar with the incontinence of the old man he probably will never be, his injuries likely to shorten his life by at least two decades. If he survives the next breath. If he ever wakes. And this surgery came only after another that was more vital. Seventeen hours of delicate, intensive surgery on his lower spine, two cracked vertebrae fused together using bone from his hip, the shrapnel from a bullet lodged too close to his spinal cord to risk removal. His gallbladder gone, as well as a lymph node. Feet of small intestine excised, the lower lobe of his right lung damaged, leaving him with such diminished capacity that playing on the jungle gym will be tantamount to summiting Everest. My boy’s body parts incinerated somewhere in the bowels of the hospital. All this just his bodily damage. Who can know the damage to his soul and mind?”*
― Eric Rickstad, [Lilith](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/205432041)
It feels like an upmarket thriller. It was a book about a violent school shooting that left a boy disabled and his mother (who is a teacher there) scarred. The mom evolves into a brutal killer to seek revenge. The mother’s character blends the lines of “good and evil.” The novel also feels very cemented in the contemporary US political turmoil between the extreme left and right-wing. So many philosophical introspections and lines about guns, violence, and human depravity really stay with you long after you finish reading.
I am not American; however, as a foreigner, I thought the novel explains some shocking truths about the education sector in the US, the stupifying rules and laws concerning protocol during school shootings, and how teachers can be prosecuted if they don’t follow these absurd rules.
The sheer numbers and statistics concerning the victims of these attacks terrified me.
I recommend reading it if you enjoy social commentary within a thriller/suspense novel, but keep in mind, that the mother is very left-wing and the novel is purely from her POV.
by jpch12