What book should everybody read before the age of 21?
This might be a dark answer to a potentially inspiring question, but I’d love to see everyone read Rebecca Godfrey’s “Under the Bridge” before turning 21. It’s a chilling work of narrative journalism that documents the beating and murder of 14-year-old Reena Virk at the hands of a group of teenagers in British Columbia. I admire Godfrey’s refusal to flatten her teenage characters — victim and perpetrators alike — or let them flatten themselves. She steers clear of easy moralizing but stays honest about the swirl of rage and fear that hovers over adolescence like a terrible weather system.
Ten Canadian Authors on the Best Books of 2019
"Godfrey’s storytelling is vivid, empathetic, and challenging..."
Now Available in Audiobook
Under The Bridge
" Nobody has ever really told the story Rebecca Godfrey tells in Under The Bridge. Nobody had ever really listened to the kids swept up in the events of that night. What would have been the point? Everyone thought they surely knew what happened. But the truth is rarely simple, and even though the case has been covered by journalists from around the world, it may be that someone who traffics in fiction has uncovered the most resonant truths of all."
-Simon Houpt, The Globe and Mail
Both tragic and cathartic.
The New York Times
A tour-de-force of true crime reportage. Godfrey reconstructs a horrific murder with a vividness found in the finest fiction, without ever sacrificing journalistic integrity.
Kirkus Reviews
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THE TORN SKIRT
A hot book, a thrilling romance of teen rage and longing.
-- Mary Gaitskill
