Winged Creatures

By: Roy Freirich

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Paperback | 1 January 2008 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
288 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.2 x 13.1 x 1.8

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Anne Hagen is having lunch in a fast food restaurant with her best friend Jimmy and her father, when a suicidal gunman opens fire, killing her father and others. Winged Creatures tracks the survivors struggle to live with the choices they made that day, and to regain trust in the ordinary world.

Anne develops a religious hysteria and becomes revered by the town - but blackmails Jimmy into muteness, all to protect the secret that nearly destroys him and his already fractured family. Charlie, a devoted father and driving-school teacher, walks away with a bullet graze, and attempts to press his luck at a casino. Fear and loneliness drive the restaurant cashier, Carla, into desperation, and she begins to neglect her infant son. ER physician Dr Laraby fails to save the shooting victims, and turns to his wife as someone to save. Psychologist Ron Abler tries to help the survivors deal with the aftermath, but meets resistance - the repression and denial that must surround the memory of the event itself.

Winged Creatures explodes the myth of "closure" with an after-the-cameras-go-home look at the real and lasting trauma of gun violence - ordinary people driven by secret torments and dangerous compulsions, in flight from their own memories and dreams.

Industry Reviews

"This well-crafted debut packs a wallop." --Booklist

"The survivors of a gun massacre struggle with the aftermath in Freirich's stark, impressive debut. While emotionally charged, the narrative isn't weighed down with sentiment as the characters search for, but don't necessarily find, closure." --Publisher's Weekly

"A riveting debut novel about the aftermath of a mass shooting in a fast food restaurant. The author achieves the amazing feat of following an utterly disparate cast of dramatis personae through the vicissitudes of their lives as they are irrevocably scarred and changed forever. A sure-fire page-turner and, without question, has great movie written all over it, vividly reminiscent of Atom Egoyan's great The Sweet Hereafter." --Rex Pickett, author of Sideways

"When a life is shattered, what is left is to hold onto? Roy Freirich's group portrait of the aftermath of a random shooting delves into areas of the psyche rarely explored with such precision and delicacy. A relentlessly suspenseful and mesmerizing novel from a brilliantly original writer. Winged Creatures is an astounding debut." --David Angsten, author of Dark Gold

"A searing emotional drama of an American random shooting and the profoundly moving struggles of the survivors to regain their wholeness." --R.H. Weber, author of Homeland

"Songwriter and screenwriter Freirich's debut novel offers an intriguing look at unique yet interrelated patterns of trauma and recovery." --Kirkus

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