Westward — Rick Ridgway

We are all born equal: slushed from a broken bloody womb, crying as our mothers cry, in pain and amazement. Here I am in my sticky caul, slathered with her blood, connected by a gut-like cord. It's snipped, and I'm tugged away. I'm held aloft, gloved hands probing my mucky skin. I'm whacked and scraped clean and turned in an arc in the arctic hospital light, like a skinned seal. My first feeling must be fear. I'm squinting through blooding eyelids at the strange people in the chlorophyll-green gowns. I'm nearly blind, and raw, and lost. This can't be my world, can never be my home.So begins this dark novel that charts the descent of a nascent serial killer. A startling original work of literary fiction set in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio.