29/08/2026
I thought I was picking up a mystery. I didn't expect to pick up a book that would make me question how quickly we decide who people are.
Joe Talbert begins with what should be a simple college assignment: interview an elderly man and write about his life. He finds Carl Iverson, a dying Vietnam veteran and convicted murderer spending his final days in a nursing home. On paper, Carl's story seems finished. A crime, a conviction, a prison sentence, and now death. But Joe starts asking questions, and suddenly the story that looked so simple begins to crack open.
What makes The Life We Bury so compelling is that the mystery isn't only about what happened years ago. It's about how much of a person can be hidden behind a single label. “Murderer.” “Addict.” “Troubled family.” “Victim.” We use these words because they make complicated lives easier to understand. Eskens takes those labels and slowly pulls them apart, forcing Joe, and the reader, to look at the human being underneath.
And Joe has his own buried life to deal with. While investigating Carl, he's also trying to survive a difficult home situation and protect his autistic brother, Jeremy. That parallel gives the story an emotional depth I wasn't expecting. Joe isn't simply trying to uncover someone else's past. He's trying to figure out what kind of man he wants to become while carrying circumstances he never chose.
The relationship between Joe and Carl became the heart of the novel for me. What begins as an assignment becomes something much more personal. Carl knows his time is running out, and Joe slowly realizes that finding the truth isn't just about getting a good grade anymore. Every conversation feels heavier because there is a clock ticking in the background. The closer Joe gets to the truth, the more dangerous the search becomes.
But the most affecting part of the book is the way it plays with our instinct to judge. Carl may be a convicted murderer, but can a person be reduced to the worst thing they've been accused of? Joe may be young, but does that mean he can't understand complicated truths? Even the people we initially think we understand begin revealing pieces of themselves that change how we see them.
And then there is Jeremy. His presence gives the story another layer of tenderness and responsibility. Joe's relationship with his brother reminded me that sometimes love doesn't look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like staying. Protecting. Showing up again and again when life would be easier if you walked away.
I also loved how the suspense never completely overwhelms the humanity of the story. You want to know what happened, absolutely. But eventually you realize you're reading for something bigger than the answer. You're reading because you want to understand these people. You want to know what made them who they are, what they regret, what they are capable of, and whether redemption is still possible when a life has already been badly damaged.
That is what the title came to mean to me. We don't only bury people. We bury memories, mistakes, secrets, trauma, guilt, and sometimes entire versions of ourselves. And just because something has been buried doesn't mean it has stopped affecting the person carrying it.
The Life We Bury left me with that uncomfortable thought: how much of someone's story do we actually know before we decide who they are?
Because sometimes the person you think you understand is only the first chapter.
And sometimes the truth is buried much deeper.
