Sarah is a Ph.D student at the end of her program; teaching students, wrestling with her advisor, and spending most of her time with her best friend, Nathan. The two of them enjoy the occasional drug-fueled bender. When Nathan dies of an overdose, Sarah is convinced it was a homocide. The police don't take her seriously - afterall, she herself admits they were regular drug users, just not of the harder variety. Since Nathan was the one person who believed and supported her after her rape, Sarah feels a particular call to fight for him.
Murphy writes with beautiful staccatto sentences that capture the detached emotion of her protagonist. I didn't think I would love the book - I found myself unsympathetic after reading the description. I'm neither a Ph.D student nor a drug user, as I think most of Murphy's potential readers would say. She absolutely captured me, and I found myself staying up late to find out what happened next. Sarah is great at compartmentalizing - she has to be in order to survive what's happened to her. That has to be a difficult perspective to write from, but Murphy handles it masterfully.
Sarah's focus in her work is on the buddhism and violence, and the idea that while one of the core doctrines is nonviolence, violence itself can be justified if it prevents future harm. Absolutely fascinating when you pair it with the rapists found on every college campus, and how little is done to quash their future prospects as punishment for their actions. The book is an exploration of those ideas - violence and our response to violence. Highly recommend.