The Unfinished Child (Paperback or Softback)

When life becomes unbearable to lawyer Aiden Benjamin Conway, the world goes white. Everything. People, landscapes, a cup of coffee. This delusion is his penance, punishment for a day spent helping his father remodel his dead sister's nursery when he was a child. It was the summer he first saw the cracks in his parents' marriage, when his mother kept a vigil over that room as if her daughter might one day return. His delusion isn't the only thing he needs to escape. He is ensnared in a federal corruption investigation that could end his career and send him to jail for years. The simple act of trying to live a normal life turns his world into a giant circle, pushing him together with people who know more about his broken childhood than he does. Their secrets, along with his own, transform his mind into a white hot prison of madness.

Five Stars, Readers' FavoriteThe Unfinished Child is an accomplished work of literary fiction by author Charles D.J. Case. In a fragmented narrative that reflects the mind of our unstable narrator, we follow the life path of Aidan Benjamin Conway, a lawyer facing devastating consequences pending a corruption inquiry in which he is implicated. As his present day life spirals out of control, episodes of his past blend into the tale. We learn that his childhood was bizarrely traumatic, haunted by the loss of his baby sister. When Aidan was very small, his mother and father were destroyed by her loss, and this emptiness has haunted him long into his adult life, causing a monumental breakdown as he is driven to totally insanity.

As with most works of literary fiction, you have to be sure you want in before diving into this debut novel by Charles D.J. Case. For readers committed to detail, piecing together the tangled webs of threads that make up Aidan's life story is a very rewarding experience, fraught with small, seemingly anecdotal moments that come back to haunt him in full living color. As the title suggests, Aidan's broken childhood is riddled with secrets and extraneous moments that he doesn't remember or understand, and trying to backtrack those as an adult seems to be his only way out of the descent into madness he is experiencing. Charles D.J. Case does a remarkably authentic job of replicating the disjointed, fractured way of thinking, and I'd definitely recommend The Unfinished Child to any reader ready for a serious mind game.Reviewed by K.C. Finn for Readers' Favorite