Review by Deb Czajkowski
Nine years ago, just three years into
her marriage to Elliot, Marti Trailor chose to leave her career as a social
worker to be a stay-at-home mom to their newborn, Nina, and then to Simon and
Poppy. The daughter of a Virginia
congressman, Marti understood the demands that would be placed on her husband
─both innately and by himself─ as he strove for excellent in medical school,
fellowship, and now as an obstetrician, and she gladly sacrificed her love of
social work to support her husband’s schooling and career as well as their
three small children.
Then, at a hospital soiree, Marti meets
Win Phillips, the head of the New Moms program, a recent addition to the hospital’s
OB team, and he’s eager to hire a savvy social worker to help him turn this
grant experiment into a solid, successful service to new women and to the
hospital. Within minutes of their meeting, Win offers Marti the job. And Marti accepts!
But Elliot is not pleased. He argues that Marti should remain at home
with their children. Marti counters that
all of their children will be in school.
Elliot claims that two Trailors at the same hospital will be too
confusing. Marti offers to use her maiden name. Seriously, Elliot, that’s the
best you’ve got? Well then. Marti’s social work career is once again off and
running, and Marti couldn’t be happier with her decision. Until….
Until an act of kindness puts Marti in
the wrong place at the right time, and Marti sees something that will change
her life forever.
Think about 9/11: The guy who
overslept. The mom who changed her blouse after the baby spit up on it. The
woman who stopped for a muffin ─or the one who didn’t stop. Circumstances. Wrong
place, right time. Right place, wrong time. One act can alter one’s life
forever.
In Erika Raskin’s Best Intentions, the author builds a compelling story, the story of
a doctor’s wife, a mother of three, who loves her job of helping new mothers.
Yet life happens; tragedies happen. Marti
truly does have the best of intentions when she agrees, out of kindness, to an
unusual ─ and one could argue unconventional─ alignment. She could certainly not have foreseen how
this simple act would lead to her being arrested and now on trial for a
catastrophic event that changed the lives of all involved.
Raskin cleverly starts her novel with a
brief but effective peak at Marti and her attorney preparing for trial. Then she
takes the reader back in time, back to the beginning: before Marti meets Win,
before she joins his team, before she has the slightest clue how her daily,
singular acts ─all of that plus what she witnessed on that one fateful night─
will together add up to a charge of murder. As Raskin carefully brings Marti’s
story forward, she intersperses tidbits of the murder investigation, eventually
bringing them together in the present, where Marti’s journey plays out to the
end.
What is that end? Well, you need to start at the beginning,
Marti’s beginning. A story that could be any social worker’s story, any
teacher’s, any doctor’s, any person’s. Life is as fascinating as it can be
bewildering. We all want a happy ending.
We don’t all get one. Does
Marti? One way to find out: Read Best Intentions by Erika Raskin.
Purchase the book at:
About
the author:
I’ve been
gathering story skeletons, punchlines, and snippets of “overheard”
conversations since childhood. When I discovered writing, it was like happening
upon the world’s greatest display case for my collections. I especially love
crafting fiction as no matter what the characters get up to (or whatever mean
thoughts flit across their minds) all I’mdoing
is reporting. BEST
INTENTIONS, my second novel, is coming out with St. Martin’s Press
in 2017. CLOSE,
my first, was called “a page-turner of significance.” I’ve done essays for
print and radio and am currently working on a novel-in-stories.
I
grew up in Washington, D.C., the daughter of a novelist and human rights
activist. We lived in an old brick row house that was a hub of the women’s,
civil rights and anti-war movements. There was an endless soundtrack of Motown,
typewriter music and politics.
My
husband has been my boyfriend since I was 18. We have three children, two
sons-in-law, a grandboy and many siblings, nieces and nephews. When we all get
together we turn touch football, gin rummy and ping-pong into blood sports.
Connect with the author at:
St.Martin’s Press is giving
One lucky
winner a print copy of
Best
Intentions by Erika Raskin
