I'm caught in an awkward spot on New World For Old. Brendan almost agrees to go with Elmer Wayne Henley and David Brooks to Dean Corll's house for a party but refuses only because he's carrying a circulating fan he got out of the trash and wants to fix. A couple weeks later, he learns they've been raping and killing boys, and that was planned for him. It freaks him out.
He spins into wondering about the arbitrariness of who lives and who dies in the world. How you can be walking down a street and get invited to a party and wind up dead, or being blown up by a bomb like he almost was, or taken and tortured to death by men you've never seen before, like his father was. I'm having trouble making this make sense within Brendan's frame of mind.
He's living in the pool house behind his Aunt's home and they're having cookouts with neighbors and life is settling down around him so smoothly, he's lulled into a sort of complacency. Then BAM! The Houston serial killings explode and it was blind luck that saved him
It messes with his sense of control in the world, control of himself. He'd been dealing with guilt over the bomb that hit Joanna's father's shop, thinking his relationship with her might have triggered it, but now he sees how arbitrary it was. True, her father was targeted because he was part of the Protestant UVF, who were just as vicious as PIRA, but the bomb wasn't supposed to explode till later. Two kids playing around and bouncing against the car are what set it off.
It's all still a jumble in my head, but having this happen is important to Brendan being able to let go of the guilt he feels and move on with his life. I just need to make it make sense.
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