It’s amazing the amount of sin that the Original Sin begat. Murder, rape, sexual abuse, and the lesser evils such as theft. Katherine Anne Tolliver, the heroine in Getting Off, Lawrence Block's new novel (writing as Jill Emerson, Titan Books, $25.99), suffered all of those except for murder, and she has become practiced in some of them, including murder, in the five or so years since she murdered her parents. Her father had it coming; he sexually abused her for years until he suffered a spate of guilt and “dumped” his teenage daughter. It was a rejection that left her devastated, until she realized that what they were doing was wrong, and took matters into her own hands.
This article appears in Nov 24-30, 2011.