On picking this up you might feel it a little bleak for a holiday but it is a powerful and deeply moving tale which I highly recommend. It is a compelling drama about silence, lies and prejudice concerning a murder in the 80s, with the accused now facing execution in 2004. The victim’s mother, strangely obsessed with the murderer, uncovers some ugly truths. Set in Illinois, it jumps around in time but this adds to the suspense as grief, hate and anger rise. Beautifully written.
Irene Stanley thought her world had come to an end when her teenage son, Shep, is murdered. Daniel Robbin, who had spent his teenage years in and out of trouble, gave himself up to the police and was given the state's harshest sentence: death by lethal injection. Now, nineteen years later, as the state penitentiary prepares to execute Robbin, Irene Stanley must reveal what she has been hiding from her family. That in order to survive the anger and grief she had at loosing her so, she not only had forgiven the man who killed him, but had come to be his friend. Her revelation stuns her family and cracks open the secrets that had been surrounding her son's death. Secrets that reveal how little she understood Shep, her husband, or herself. Dramatic, emotional, and ultimately uplifting, The Crying Tree is an unforgettable story of love and redemption, the unbreakable bonds of family, and the transformative power of forgiveness.
