The Reconstructionist

Ellis Baxter works as a reconstructionist, someone who reconstructs accident scenes to determine exactly what happened, how fast a car was going, how many times it rolled, etc. Hired by insurance companies or grieving families looking to find relief in suing someone else, he and his boss, John Boggs, work with tiny details, paying attention to skid marks and scratches on vehicles, reworking and re-imagining things until they come up with a model of the event.

Ellis’ life has been indelibly marked by two accidents, both of which alter his life beyond recognition. The first occurs when he is in high school, and his older half-brother is in an accident with his girlfriend, on whom Ellis has a big crush. The second occurs after he, as an adult, begins an affair with that same girlfriend, now his boss’ wife; the fact that Boggs is his best friend is of course a complication. He is driving to meet the two of them when he hits a pedestrian. This triggers an existential crisis that takes up the remainder of the book, and shatters 3 lives irreparably, leaving them to pick up the pieces and build something new.

In many ways, the most memorable character in The Reconstructionist is Boggs, who drives through life in a lime-green convertible, stereo at top volume, listening to audio books. Scattered throughout the book are quotations by authors as diverse as Dostoyevsky, Kundera, Coetzee and Gogol. I found it interesting to read, in the author’s notes at the end, that his character was the impetus for the writing of the book.

The Reconstructionist is very well-written, although sometimes I didn’t like the characters very much. It deals with the bigger questions—how much does our past affect our future? How do we survive accidents that scar and maim us in invisible ways? It doesn’t always answer these questions, but provides a thought-provoking read.

Elizabeth is teaching both her teenage son and an Iraqi woman how to drive, so she found this account of car accidents particularly unsettling. Read more at her blog Planet Nomad.