Eireann Corrigan’s novel in verse, Splintering, tells the story of a family 
whose suburban life is shattered after a home invasion. While visiting their oldest daughter, Mimi, in the city after her husband left her, a man, high on drugs, breaks into the house. Dad has a heart attack while fighting him off, brother Jeremy flees to the basement, and mom, 15 year old daughter Paulie and Mimi retreat upstairs until the man breaks down the door and attacks them. Fortunately, no one dies, but the aftermath unravels the family as each of them deal with the event in their own tortured way.
Fierce, angry Paulie and her older brother Jeremy narrate the story in alternating chapters as they watch everything fall apart. The issues that plagued the family before the attack rise to the surface afterwards as Paulie takes refuge with a college-age boyfriend, Jeremy retreats to the basement until he meets someone he might be able to trust, and Mimi lives in isolation on the family couch. No one confronts their feelings, fear or anxiety, and it simmers and boils into a toxic stew.
Corrigan’s poetry expertly captures the nuances between Jeremy and Paulie as well as the pain, anger and guilt that is as raw as a gaping wound. Harsh, sometimes terrifying, and searingly intense, Splintering looks with an unflinching eye at the pain this family kept hidden inside until that fateful night.
- Posted by Cori