The Lost Night

The Lost Night is a memoir by Rachel Howard who awoke one night when she was ten years old to find the hallway in her home filled with blood and her father clutching his stabbed throat. His murder remains unsolved. Howard's book is not a search for the murderer or a whodunnit. It is a powerful tale of coping with a traumatic tragedy and how her life unfolded always in the shadow of that event. Seventeen years after the murder, Howard sets out to find if not answers at least some truths as to what happened that night and the events leading up to it. Through this journey of discovery she reconnects with many members of her family who had kept silent all those years and finally the whole family is able to start moving on. Howard also explores the fragility of memory and isn't afraid to admit that the way she remembers events is apparently not the way they happened. It's a spellbinding, gutsy chronicle of the life of someone who overcame a bizarre tragedy and ultimately discovered her own way to heal.