A BETTER ENDING

A whodunit that hits close to home.

Novelist Thomson began work on this book about the death of his younger sister, Eileen, in 2001, more than two decades after her alleged suicide in September 1974. While attempting to fictionalize the tragedy, he had a sudden realization: There was no reason to believe the official story that, feeling remorse over an affair and guilt over two miscarriages, Eileen had shot herself in the heart during a heated argument with her husband, Vic, a police officer. One discordant fact about the incident gnawed at him: His parents had received a hopeful letter from Eileen, written and sent on the day of her death, giving no indication that she was feeling suicidal. Deciding he was writing about his own long-suppressed doubts about the case, Thomson hired a private investigator in Los Angeles (the death occurred 60 miles east, in San Bernardino) to try to get at the truth. What they find in the record and interviews of surviving witnesses shakes Thomson to his core. He begins to question not only the facts he had long trusted but also the flaws in his own character that made him trust those facts for so long. He sees parallels in his own history—alcoholism, adultery, domestic violence—echoing in Eileen’s tragically short life. These ruminations and doubts give this memoir a depth lacking in many true-crime stories. Parts of the book closely resemble that genre in tone and atmosphere and leave the reader guessing up to the climatic confrontation between Thomson and his former brother-in-law at a Seattle restaurant in 2004. The tortured, philosophical self-examination can sometimes feel like another book entirely, but it’s essential to the book’s arguments about the nature of truth and the dread of uncertainty.

A sometimes uneven but ultimately provocative read.