Cover of Monday, Monday

Monday, Monday

In this gripping, emotionally charged novel, a tragedy in Texas changes the course of three lives

On an oppressively hot Monday in August of 1966, a student and former marine named Charles Whitman hauled a footlocker of guns to the top of the University of Texas tower and began firing on pedestrians below. Before it was over, sixteen people had been killed and thirty-two wounded. It was the first mass shooting of civilians on a campus in American history.

Read more

Monday, Mondayfollows three students caught up in the massacre: Shelly, who leaves her math class and walks directly into the path of the bullets, and two cousins, Wyatt and Jack, who heroically rush from their classrooms to help the victims. On this searing day, a relationship begins that will eventually entangle these three young people in a forbidden love affair, an illicit pregnancy, and a vow of secrecy that will span forty years. Reunited decades after the tragedy, they will be forced to confront the event that changed their lives and that has silently and persistently ruled the lives of their children.With electrifying storytelling and the powerful sense of destiny found in Ann Patchett's Bel Canto, and with the epic sweep of Jess Walter's Beautiful Ruins, Elizabeth Crook's Monday, Mondayexplores the ways in which we sustain ourselves and one another when the unthinkable happens. At its core, it is the story of a woman determined to make peace with herself, with the people she loves, and with a history that will not let her go. A humane treatment of a national tragedy, it marks a generous and thrilling new direction for a gifted American writer.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 352 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Monday, Monday? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Monday, Monday. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Ripple Shares fiction
  2. The Promise Shares historical fiction, fiction, Texas
  3. Stormy Weather Shares historical fiction, fiction, Texas
  4. Georgetown Academy: Book Three Shares contemporary

“People who read Monday, Monday tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Tremolo: Cry of the Loon
  2. Sweet Prairie Passion
  3. Georgetown Academy: Season One
  4. Love of the Game

“If you want more of the same (historical fiction about women), start with these.”

  1. Home from the Hill
  2. Texas
  3. Love Is a Wild Assault
  4. Caballero: A Historical Novel

“If it was the Texas that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Magnolia City
  2. Titans
  3. Hill Country: A Novel
  4. Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. College Killers : School Shootings in North America and Europe - Columbine, Jonesboro, Bath, Thurston, Red Lake, Virginia, Pontiac's Rebellion, Texas Tower, Beslan, Erfurt, Dunblane
  2. Last Day on Earth: A Portrait of the NIU School Shooter
  3. April 16th: Virginia Tech Remembers
  4. The Death Class: A True Story About Life