1997, Boston — Fifteen years ago an eleven-year-old girl died an unspeakable death in a small Midwestern city…. As a child, Weeble earns her nickname for her ability to stand up under difficult circumstances. Despite the squalor, neglect, and abuse of her home, Weeble adopts the role of protector, first for her younger sister, Annie, and then for her best friend, Lauren. When Lauren dies, … Lauren. When Lauren dies, Weeble hides her stark, painful childhood from herself in order to survive.
Years later and now a civil engineer living thousands of miles away, Weeble’s tenuous hold on her emotional state has started to unravel. The methods she uses to cope with her shame and grief no longer work. After winning a grant to create a Web site dedicated to the victims of serial killers, Weeble shuts out longtime friends and begins training for the Boston Sprint Triathlon. Running hard has always kept the nightmares at bay. Then during an early-morning run, she’s caught off guard by a Freegan named Tom Paul, a glass artist and modern mystic. Weeble’s numb detachment shatters. As her past increasingly invades her present, she will be forced to confront the truth of what happened that long ago summer.
Using a structure that switches abruptly between radiant present and dark past, Saint Sebastian’s Head tells the ultimately healing love story of a damaged woman and the faithful man who can see the hidden beauty of her soul.
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Author LeAnn Neal Reilly’s first novel, The Mermaid’s Pendant, is an epic re-imagining of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic The Little Mermaid, full of whimsy, magic, and romance. It also contained some darker elements, but in Saint Sebastian’s Head, Reilly crafted a story that explores darkness and pain in depth. She studies the impact that childhood sexual abuse and violent crime have on a little girl who was nicknamed Weeble because, like the toys, she refused to fall down. Now twenty-five years old, Weeble is still standing — but just barely.
Reilly tackles her subject honestly and unflinchingly, making Weeble’s first-person recollections of her painful childhood difficult to read, but also fascinating. As she relates the way her parents drank, used drugs, and essentially left their children to fend for themselves, Reilly draws readers into Weeble’s courageous fight to keep little Annie from experiencing the same horrors she had. Weeble became Annie’s protector, even though she was but a young child herself. She longed to have friends and be like the other kids which, ultimately, led to what she perceives as her failure to shield Annie.
As if what happened in Weeble’s own home wasn’t bad enough, Reilly heaps more suffering upon her. Weeble noticed a mysterious man outside their school who looked like a scarecrow. None of the other girls saw him lurking, but Weeble instantly recognized him a few weeks later when she realized that he had come for Lauren. Weeble was not powerful enough to save Lauren, either, and now she lives with unremitting guilt about surviving. Although she graduated from college and began a successful career, the emotional scars have left her functioning at only the most basic levels and her well-being is a constant source of concern for her devoted friends, none of whom know the whole truth about her past. Even Weeble can’t face the whole truth.
Against the backdrop of Weeble’s dark existence Reilly contrasts the artistic vision and spiritual soul of Tom Paul who instantly recognizes Weeble’s inherent goodness and fragility. He is drawn to her, but knows that he must be cautious and patient. Tom Paul’s funky dumpster-diving frugalism and belief in truth is, remarkably, as believable and compelling as Reilly’s portrayal of the emotional abyss in which Weeble dwells. Weeble must confront and make peace with her past before she can embrace her future, but can Tom Paul gently lead her out of blackness into the light? Readers will find themselves fervently hoping so.
Reilly effectively alternates past and present — current events unfold in third-person, while Weeble recalls and recounts the events that have shaped her life in a matter-of-fact, realistic manner that is riveting and horrifying. Strong language and sexual situations are mandated, given the subject matter, making the supporting characters, especially Mona and Frank, realistically flawed and surprisingly sympathetic. Reilly injects a strong dose of what may prove to be her trademark — magic and an other-worldly sensibility. Tom Paul sees others’ auras and Weeble comes to believe that an angel has not only accompanied her on her journey, but warned her about various events.
The result is another book that proves impossible to put down until all of Weeble’s mysterious past is revealed and the question of whether or not she can find redemption is answered. The reason is simple: Reilly deftly makes readers care about her characters not through melodrama or contrivances, but by plainly and unsparingly examining their very human condition.
Thanks to author LeAnn Neal Reilly for a complimentary copy of the book.