The Book of Otto and Liam

January 15, 2021
The aftermath of a fictional school shooting that closely resembles the Sandy Hook tragedy makes for a very dark read. While Griner includes background on the teenage gunman and devotes quite a bit of space to Otto's memories of life with his son, Liam, and wife, May, before the shooting, the novel focuses mainly on the consequences for the survivors and society at large. Beginning in 2018, on the third anniversary, Otto tells his story in nonlinear narrative segments, moving backward to the 2015 shooting and even earlier to a time when his happiness as a father and husband seemed perfect, as well as forward to 2019 as he's going off the rails, drinking and obsessing. Sprinkled between these sections are drawings by Otto, ever higher statistics about school shootings, and a selection of the emails and letters Otto has received, mostly vile accusations and threats from people who believe the shooting never happened. But it obviously did. Eight-year-old Liam was shot but survived the 11 minutes of gunfire. As he languished in the hospital for months, hoaxers zeroed in on him and his parents with particular fury. Otto and May blame themselves if not each other, and their marriage, which seemed so strong, collapses. Liam's best friend, Latrell, did not survive, and Otto falls into an increasingly unhealthy friendship with the boy's father, Lamont, a former football player, based on their mutual vengeful grief. Lamont becomes increasingly, dangerously violent toward anyone who crosses him. Otto flirts briefly with violence, but his obsession narrows on finding and confronting the woman he thinks controls the hoaxers, who continue to stalk him and May for years. Until an unfortunately rushed ending, Griner's novel is a powerful excavation into the darkest recesses of grief. Parents of young children, beware: Liam is such a believable child that identifying with his parents' stark anguish becomes unavoidable--and so unbearable that it's hard to imagine how the author could bring himself to keep writing. Unabashedly polemical, angry, and heartbreaking.

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April 1, 2021
Griner's novel begins on the anniversary of a school shooting in which 43 children and eight adults were killed and 27 were wounded, including eight-year-old Liam Barnes. Three years later, Liam's father, Otto, a commercial artist, is constantly on the move, stalked by hoaxers who believe that the shooting was faked, that Otto is a crisis actor, and that Liam never existed. They post his address on the internet; badger him with voicemails, emails, and letters; vandalize his car; and threaten him physically. A woman known only as Kate appears to be their leader, and Otto becomes obsessed with finding and confronting her. Meanwhile, others chart their own courses through grief and anger, including his ex-wife, May; his friend Lamont, whose son was killed in the shooting; and Nash, a detective assigned to the investigation. Liam and Otto had begun working on an erasure book, taking a discarded old volume and erasing, drawing, and pasting in images to create a new work. Through short, episodic chapters interspersed with sketches, memories, letters, and a running count of school shootings and deaths, Griner creates an entirely original portrait of grief, loss, and finding a new way forward in the aftermath of an all-too-familiar tragedy.

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