This is an incredibly haunting book. It examines the complexinteractions and experiences that go into creating our coreselves.Iris Courtney grows up in an emotionally impoverished and al-coholic home where chaos looms in the wake of her mother'sdrinking. Iris yearns for love and touch but her mother'sdistance causes irrevocable pain, dissociation, and fuge-likestates that become Iris's primary coping skills.Eary in the book, Iris becomes fatefully tied to a young blackman who innocently kills a boy who has been tormenting Iris.Their lives become forever connected as they maintain the se-cret of the killing forever.