Synopsis: Guilt

Theirs was a secret so momentous, their measures to conceal it so excessive, that to simply dispel it all with a spasm of integrity was, if anything, a waste of hard work.

Oliver and William, two respectable men well into their sixties, come together in New York City decades after they were roommates at Yale University. On their mind is the manuscript sent to them by Daniel, a friend from college, who wrote an autobiographical novel which details a horrific event that they were complicit in, and which the three of them have kept secret for forty years.

Oliver, troubled and introspective, can't imagine why anyone would be tempted to make public these horrible events. William, now a popular jazz singer in England, doesn't want to have anything to do with it but can't risk Daniel ruining his career. Months before, Daniel is struggling with writing a novel that exploits real people and events for the sake of entertainment, and fears the aftermath of publication.

Told from three perspectives in three individual parts, Guilt is a novel about the dirty practice of dramatization, the maddening side-effects of fear and how in forty years's time, even the littlest of lies can become a behemoth of a secret.

Progress:
Part One (Oliver): done! at 19,271 words
Part Two (William): writing... at 3,332 words
Part Three (Daniel): 0 words