"I have a sister who died. Did I tell you this already? I did but you don't remember, you didn't understand the code....She died a year ago, but in my mind sometimes it's five minutes. In the morning sometimes it hasn't even happened yet. For a second I'm confused, but then it all comes back. It happens again."
Playwright Victor Lodato's first novel, Mathilda Savitch, follows a young girl desperately trying to glue her family back together after her sister is hit by a train. As the anniversary of the death approaches, Mathilda's mother consoles herself with alcohol and cigarettes while her father feebly attempts to keep up appearances. Mathilda, herself, struggles both to understand the mysterious accident and to accept what she finds to be the truth.
The result is a heartbreaking though darkly humourous book told from the point of view of an inquisitive, quirky, angry and fearless teen whose voice lingers long after the book ends.
