After Patrick Furey, a heartbroken and bullied gay student, hangs himself in his bedroom, there is no minute of silence, no special assembly. Instead, his school's closeted principal forbids staff to share any information, fearing a teen suicide would damage the school's reputation and possibly spawn copycats. Furey's death may happen in the first few pages of Suzette Mayr's fourth novel, but it echoes from cover to cover. His empty desk forces students and staff to contemplate the finality of his death, and the fact that they hardly knew the troubled student at all.
