A gripping novel of addiction and atonement, Blame raises provocative questions about the nature of shame and the healing potential of love. Waking up in jail after an alcoholic blackout, Patsy MacLemoore learns that she has run over and killed a mother and daughter in her driveway. A promising young history professor, she now goes to prison, where her life is a daily struggle—with retribution, with sobriety, and with her past relationships. After serving her sentence, she moves next door to an old boyfriend, attends AA, and begins to see her old life in a new way, becoming an exemplary ESL teacher and eventually marrying a much older man who shares her struggle with commitment to sobriety and a service-centered life. Then, in a stunning twist, Patsy makes a discovery that shatters all her fundamental beliefs and challenges the reader’s too-easy reverence for the truth.