The Everglades

A Note to Readers

Chapter Twenty-Three follows the novel's damage into its next generation — the wounds a broken family passes to a lost teenage boy, and the choices that follow. It contains mature material, including sexual content involving adolescent characters and other depictions that some readers may find disturbing. Out of care for readers encountering it unprepared, this chapter is not reproduced here on the blog.

It remains an essential part of the story, bearing witness to the intergenerational cost of the cruelty the novel exists to name and resist. Readers who wish to continue can find Chapter Twenty-Three in its full context within the complete novel.