East of Eagle is a literary psychological drama that unearths the buried truths of a fractured American family through the layered, introspective lens of Jeff Vetch—a once-boyish narrator turned elderly writer in quiet La Jolla. What begins as a nostalgic reflection on childhood summers in the Northwoods of Wisconsin unfolds into a shocking meditation on betrayal, guilt, and generational silence.

The novel centers on the Vetch family’s summer retreat—a cottage perched above Cranberry Lake, lovingly named “East of Eagle” for its location near Eagle River and as a nod to East of Eden. The family’s outward charm, anchored by the beauty of nature and the rituals of lake life, slowly disintegrates as Jeff recalls the events of the late 1960s, especially the pivotal summer of 1969. Told in the first person with a memoirist’s tone and a novelist’s precision, Jeff’s narrative pulls readers into an emotional labyrinth where fiction, memory, and truth blur.

At its heart, East of Eagle is about the emotional violence inflicted by a controlling matriarch—Jeff’s mother, Dolores Vetch-Kurtz. Behind her makeup and societal standing lies a woman whose cruelty manifests not through overt aggression but through eerie detachment, manipulation, and, ultimately, near-lethal indifference. Her second husband, Adolph, a retired policeman, becomes her willing accomplice in a house governed by appearance, silence, and tightly controlled dynamics.

The novel’s timeline oscillates between Jeff’s present-day interview with two young reporters and his recollections of the past. Initially, Jeff plays coy with the truth, feeding the reporters a semi-fictionalized version of events that mixes real trauma with invented deniability. But beneath the surface lies a devastating truth—one that Jeff gradually, and perhaps involuntarily, reveals to the reader.

The first fracture in the family occurs in the fall of 1967. Jeff, then a teen, flees his East Coast prep school and returns home determined to finish his education at New Trier High in Illinois. His rebellion enrages Dolores, who views his decision not as adolescent angst but as personal betrayal. When he attempts to leave home on his seventeenth birthday, a shot is fired at his car. At first, the blame seems to fall on his stepfather. But later, through Alec—Jeff’s older brother—it’s revealed that Dolores herself pulled the trigger, hiding behind Adolph and obscured from view. The weapon? A purse gun, fittingly theatrical for a woman whose every gesture mimics the tragic heroines she idolizes.

Jeff publishes a diary about the event, Dirty Little Secrets, in which he documents the abuse and dysfunction he and his siblings endured. The response from Dolores is swift: she disinherits Jeff and his sister Sharon. The summer of 1968 is marked by growing emotional distance, but the following summer—1969—will bring an even more horrifying incident.

On a bright summer day, Jeff, Alec, and Sharon go waterskiing. Dolores, seated on the boathouse roof, watches through binoculars. Sharon falls into the water—and begins to drown. Dolores, who sees everything, does nothing. She remains seated, passive, until Jeff and Alec rush back in the boat. Only when they get close does she begin waving and calling for help. Sharon survives—but the implication is chilling. Jeff immediately suspects that Dolores may have been reenacting a scene from a novel she was reading the previous summer: Leave Her to Heaven, a 1950s psychological thriller in which a woman allows a child to drown out of jealousy and spite.

Jeff’s suspicions are confirmed when he searches Dolores’ hidden belongings and finds the book, bookmarked at the very scene where the fictional murder occurs. Though Dolores used no weapon, her crime was one of omission—emotionally premeditated and deeply calculated. But proving it would be almost impossible.

Yet witnesses exist. A neighbor, the elderly widow Van Doren, had been watching from a nearby boathouse and saw it all. More shockingly, Jeff’s childhood friend Zeke—previously thought to be absent—was also on the lake that day. Both would later testify in court.

The narrative builds toward two trials. The first, in 1969, is in Cook County, Illinois, where Jeff charges his mother with attempted murder stemming from the 1967 shooting incident. Despite compelling testimony from Alec and Van Doren, Dolores is acquitted due to the defense’s crafty alternate explanation: a falling tree branch and BB gun confusion, bolstered by expert witnesses and misleading testimony from other relatives. Jeff loses the case—but not his resolve.

In 1970, in Vilas County, Wisconsin, he tries again—this time charging Dolores with attempted murder for the near-drowning of Sharon. This trial has higher stakes and tighter evidence. Testimonies from Jeff, Alec, Van Doren, and eventually Zeke establish that Dolores saw her daughter in danger and chose to do nothing until she knew she’d been seen. The crime was subtle. The motive was maternal revenge. The proof, though circumstantial, was compelling. This time, justice is served: Dolores is convicted and sentenced to prison.

Remarkably, in the final chapters, we learn that Dolores changed during her incarceration. Upon release, she became a more tender, introspective person. The family—broken by violence, healed by time—gradually mended its relationships. Years later, at a holiday gathering in Jeff’s La Jolla home, the surviving siblings toast by the fire like a movie’s final freeze-frame. Fiction again seeps into reality—but in this rare moment, it’s a healing lie they’re willing to tell.

And yet, the novel ends in uncertainty. The entire narrative may itself be a construct—Jeff’s final literary invention. When the reporters leave unimpressed, dismissing his tale as too far-fetched, Jeff accepts their skepticism. But the wind stirs a final truth: a hidden newspaper clipping confirming Dolores’ conviction blows out the window, where it’s discovered by a boy and his grandfather—none other than Zeke. The legacy of the story is preserved, even if no one believes it.

East of Eagle is a chilling, elegiac exploration of truth and reinvention—an American gothic dressed in lakeside charm and family lore. It asks whether memory is a tool of healing or a weapon of war, and whether the stories we tell can protect us from the ones we dare not say aloud. In the end, Jeff may or may not have told the reporters the full truth—but to the reader, he confesses everything. And that makes all the difference.