--- product_id: 8305385 title: "The Life We Bury" price: "€ 21.34" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.at/products/8305385-the-life-we-bury store_origin: AT region: Austria --- # The Life We Bury **Price:** € 21.34 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Life We Bury - **How much does it cost?** € 21.34 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.at](https://www.desertcart.at/products/8305385-the-life-we-bury) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description A USA Today bestseller and book club favorite! College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran--and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home, after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder. As Joe writes about Carl's life, especially Carl's valor in Vietnam, he cannot reconcile the heroism of the soldier with the despicable acts of the convict. Joe, along with his skeptical female neighbor, throws himself into uncovering the truth, but he is hamstrung in his efforts by having to deal with his dangerously dysfunctional mother, the guilt of leaving his autistic brother vulnerable, and a haunting childhood memory. Thread by thread, Joe unravels the tapestry of Carl’s conviction. But as he and Lila dig deeper into the circumstances of the crime, the stakes grow higher. Will Joe discover the truth before it’s too late to escape the fallout? Review: "Unburying the Truth" - Twenty-one-year-old Joe Talbert is trying to turn his life around, but the confining cage that has formed around him allows for little movement. He has never known who his father is. His mother is a long-time alcoholic who has become more and more violent, neglectful, and frequently disappears on benders or gets herself arrested. His younger brother, Jeremy, is autistic and needs almost constant supervision. Barely able to afford to do so, Joe leaves his home in Austin, Minnesota, "sneaking off like a boy running away to join a circus," to become a student at the University of Minnesota. The only English class open to him of any interest is a biography class in which he must "interview a complete stranger" because he doesn't want to interview his mom and there is basically no one else in his family who he knows. The thought occurs to him to go to a nursing home to interview a resident there... someone with a long life they can relate to Joe for his required class project, but his plan is dashed when he is informed that most of the residents "cannot take care of themselves. Most of them are suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia or some other neurological condition. They can't remember their own children, much less the details of their lives." There is, however, one exception. The Department of Corrections has paroled a prisoner and sent him to Hillview Manor because he is dying of pancreatic cancer--a convicted murderer who viciously "raped and killed a girl and then burned her body in a shed;" a real "monster" according to the Home's director. Joe Talbert's life is about to take a totally unexpected change of direction. The Life We Bury (2014) is the startling and skillful debut novel by Allen Eskens. Eskens' writing is done with flare. His choices of descriptions are fascinating and vivid and bring to life both time and place. For example, when describing an old apartment building he focuses upon the smell of the place, not the physical structure or its condition. The "odor that permeates" the air gives visitors a "split second of corruption as the taint of decay hits them square in the face." His characters are both realistic and enticing; they are complex individuals whose actions and words often do not reveal their true motivation. The very title of the novel has within it a sense of metaphor. Joe buries "thoughts deep inside, hiding them where they would remain undusted." His mother's drinking and carrying-on reflects an unfulfilled life of deep-seated frustration. Joe's new neighbor, Lila Nash, hides a humiliating past and is an enigma--cold and elusive with Joe, but warm and out-going to his mentally impaired brother. Foremost among the characters with a buried life is Carl Iverson--a former Vietnam veteran and decorated hero who, once accused of the heinous murder of Crystal Marie Hagen actually does all that he can to hasten his trial although doing so is likely to lend itself to him being found guilty. At Hillview Manor Iverson, who is in his mid-sixties but looks "closer to eighty," often refuses his pain medication just as he refuses chemo and spends every day just staring out the window. In Stage Four of his cancer, he may have "less than three thousand hours of life left to live." Surprisingly, after turning down requests for interviews for years, Iverson, knowing he is near death, agrees to be interviewed by Joe Talbert. He tells the young student: "this is my dying declaration. I don't care if anybody reads what you write. I don't even care if you write it down at all... I have to say these words out loud. I have to tell someone the truth about what happened all those years ago. I have to tell someone the truth about what I did." Eskens unveils his story in adroit fashion as Joe, the novel's narrator, learns not only about Carl's past from the dying man, but from transcripts of his trial and a diary written by the victim, some of which is in code--code that was never broken or utilized in the trial. Joe talks to Carl's defense attorney who admits that "it seemed to me that Carl Iverson wanted to go to prison" and also meets a man, Virgil Gray, who served in Vietnam with Carl. Virgil is the sole individual who believes in Carl's innocence--Carl having risked his life to save Virgil in a firefight with the Viet Cong. Further conversations with Berthel Collins, the policeman on the original murder case, and conversations with Detective Max Rupert about the thirty-year-old case further fuels the air of intrigue surrounding Carl Iverson and the sadistic murder of an innocent young girl. Half way through The Life We Bury it becomes obvious that the reader has been plunged into a full-fledged mystery. With Carl's enigmatic declaration that there is a difference between being a killer and a murderer and that he has been both, new evidence that is unearthed, and a second, previously untold terrifying story about an event in Vietnam in which Carl participated, Joe and Lila, become more and more certain that Iverson did not kill the Hagen girl. Even as events escalate in the tension between Joe and his mother over Jeremy's well-being, Joe and Lila set about to discover who is guilty of the teen's murder to clear Iverson's name before he dies. Adding to the allure of Joe and Lila's quest is another long-hidden story about Joe's youth--one that personally, obsessively drives him to uncover the truth. Filled with unimagined revelations, staggering plot twists, unforeseeable violence, and unbridled suspense as time is running out for Iverson The Life We Bury and its readers are propelled by the author to an amazing conclusion--one which is guaranteed to both please and move even the most jaded reader. It is hard to conceive a more satisfying reading experience from a first novel (or many other mystery thrillers) than what Allen Eskens delivers in The Life We Bury. [In his "Acknowledgements" Eskens states a "follow-up novel tentatively titled In the Path of the Beast" is scheduled for release in the fall.] Review: 4 Stars - 4 Stars. This is a great, fast read. It completely held my attention from cover to cover. SYNOPSIS Joe Talbert is not your average, happy go lucky, 21 year old college student. He has overcome many obstacles to become a student at the University of Minnesota; most of which are related to his mother and her combination of bi-polar disorder and alcohol abuse. He manages to work, make it to all his classes, live on a very tight budget and serve as back up caretaker for his autistic 18 year old brother. When Joe is assigned a paper in his biography class and has to find an older person to write about, he heads to a retirement home and is introduced to a Vietnam veteran who is also convinced murderer and rapists, Carl Iverson, he is hesitant to engage. He decides, at the very least, it will make an interesting biography project. But once he starts digging into the case, he realizes that things are not as they seem. Joined by his new friend/ love interest next door neighbor, he becomes fixated on finding out what really happened on the day in 1980 that Crystal Hagen was murdered and Carl's life changed forever. WHAT I LOVED This is not your average psychological thriller, it has many other elements as well: family struggles, escaping ones past, mental disorders, abuse and love. While the mystery unraveling is the main plot of the story, there were many other things going on in the characters lives. I liked Esken's writing style; he kept the plot going and didn't waste many words describing scenery, feelings, people etc., just enough so the reader gets the idea. I think I've been reading too many books lately where I have to skim page after page of overblown descriptions, it was refreshing to not have that in this book. I liked how none of the characters were perfect but they all had redeeming qualities. All of the characters had their own baggage / secrets, most of the characters (with the exception of a couple) used their past mistakes and struggles to become stronger and better. The plot was very very solid, well thought out and didn't have an excess of well placed 'coincidences' like many other books of this genre tend to have. I really couldn't find any plot holes. Again, loved to plot. It kept me completely engaged. WHAT I DIDN'T LOVE There was only scene in the book I didn't find believable (I'm not going to be specific because it would be a spoiler). Joe, who is normally pretty street smart, does something so blatantly dumb that it was hard to believe and was out of character for him. Ill leave it at that. When you read this book ( which you definitely should if you like this genre even a little), you'll know what I'm talking about. I was able to ignore it and still enjoy the story. OVERALL Don't miss this one. It's completely worth your time. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #10,262 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #89 in Amateur Sleuths #239 in Psychological Fiction (Books) #409 in Psychological Thrillers (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.3 out of 5 stars 46,480 Reviews | ## Images ![The Life We Bury - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81TlcxAvJeL.jpg) ## Available Options This product comes in different **Media Language, Media Format** options. ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Unburying the Truth" *by E***R on February 2, 2015* Twenty-one-year-old Joe Talbert is trying to turn his life around, but the confining cage that has formed around him allows for little movement. He has never known who his father is. His mother is a long-time alcoholic who has become more and more violent, neglectful, and frequently disappears on benders or gets herself arrested. His younger brother, Jeremy, is autistic and needs almost constant supervision. Barely able to afford to do so, Joe leaves his home in Austin, Minnesota, "sneaking off like a boy running away to join a circus," to become a student at the University of Minnesota. The only English class open to him of any interest is a biography class in which he must "interview a complete stranger" because he doesn't want to interview his mom and there is basically no one else in his family who he knows. The thought occurs to him to go to a nursing home to interview a resident there... someone with a long life they can relate to Joe for his required class project, but his plan is dashed when he is informed that most of the residents "cannot take care of themselves. Most of them are suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia or some other neurological condition. They can't remember their own children, much less the details of their lives." There is, however, one exception. The Department of Corrections has paroled a prisoner and sent him to Hillview Manor because he is dying of pancreatic cancer--a convicted murderer who viciously "raped and killed a girl and then burned her body in a shed;" a real "monster" according to the Home's director. Joe Talbert's life is about to take a totally unexpected change of direction. The Life We Bury (2014) is the startling and skillful debut novel by Allen Eskens. Eskens' writing is done with flare. His choices of descriptions are fascinating and vivid and bring to life both time and place. For example, when describing an old apartment building he focuses upon the smell of the place, not the physical structure or its condition. The "odor that permeates" the air gives visitors a "split second of corruption as the taint of decay hits them square in the face." His characters are both realistic and enticing; they are complex individuals whose actions and words often do not reveal their true motivation. The very title of the novel has within it a sense of metaphor. Joe buries "thoughts deep inside, hiding them where they would remain undusted." His mother's drinking and carrying-on reflects an unfulfilled life of deep-seated frustration. Joe's new neighbor, Lila Nash, hides a humiliating past and is an enigma--cold and elusive with Joe, but warm and out-going to his mentally impaired brother. Foremost among the characters with a buried life is Carl Iverson--a former Vietnam veteran and decorated hero who, once accused of the heinous murder of Crystal Marie Hagen actually does all that he can to hasten his trial although doing so is likely to lend itself to him being found guilty. At Hillview Manor Iverson, who is in his mid-sixties but looks "closer to eighty," often refuses his pain medication just as he refuses chemo and spends every day just staring out the window. In Stage Four of his cancer, he may have "less than three thousand hours of life left to live." Surprisingly, after turning down requests for interviews for years, Iverson, knowing he is near death, agrees to be interviewed by Joe Talbert. He tells the young student: "this is my dying declaration. I don't care if anybody reads what you write. I don't even care if you write it down at all... I have to say these words out loud. I have to tell someone the truth about what happened all those years ago. I have to tell someone the truth about what I did." Eskens unveils his story in adroit fashion as Joe, the novel's narrator, learns not only about Carl's past from the dying man, but from transcripts of his trial and a diary written by the victim, some of which is in code--code that was never broken or utilized in the trial. Joe talks to Carl's defense attorney who admits that "it seemed to me that Carl Iverson wanted to go to prison" and also meets a man, Virgil Gray, who served in Vietnam with Carl. Virgil is the sole individual who believes in Carl's innocence--Carl having risked his life to save Virgil in a firefight with the Viet Cong. Further conversations with Berthel Collins, the policeman on the original murder case, and conversations with Detective Max Rupert about the thirty-year-old case further fuels the air of intrigue surrounding Carl Iverson and the sadistic murder of an innocent young girl. Half way through The Life We Bury it becomes obvious that the reader has been plunged into a full-fledged mystery. With Carl's enigmatic declaration that there is a difference between being a killer and a murderer and that he has been both, new evidence that is unearthed, and a second, previously untold terrifying story about an event in Vietnam in which Carl participated, Joe and Lila, become more and more certain that Iverson did not kill the Hagen girl. Even as events escalate in the tension between Joe and his mother over Jeremy's well-being, Joe and Lila set about to discover who is guilty of the teen's murder to clear Iverson's name before he dies. Adding to the allure of Joe and Lila's quest is another long-hidden story about Joe's youth--one that personally, obsessively drives him to uncover the truth. Filled with unimagined revelations, staggering plot twists, unforeseeable violence, and unbridled suspense as time is running out for Iverson The Life We Bury and its readers are propelled by the author to an amazing conclusion--one which is guaranteed to both please and move even the most jaded reader. It is hard to conceive a more satisfying reading experience from a first novel (or many other mystery thrillers) than what Allen Eskens delivers in The Life We Bury. [In his "Acknowledgements" Eskens states a "follow-up novel tentatively titled In the Path of the Beast" is scheduled for release in the fall.] ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars *by R***R on March 12, 2017* 4 Stars. This is a great, fast read. It completely held my attention from cover to cover. SYNOPSIS Joe Talbert is not your average, happy go lucky, 21 year old college student. He has overcome many obstacles to become a student at the University of Minnesota; most of which are related to his mother and her combination of bi-polar disorder and alcohol abuse. He manages to work, make it to all his classes, live on a very tight budget and serve as back up caretaker for his autistic 18 year old brother. When Joe is assigned a paper in his biography class and has to find an older person to write about, he heads to a retirement home and is introduced to a Vietnam veteran who is also convinced murderer and rapists, Carl Iverson, he is hesitant to engage. He decides, at the very least, it will make an interesting biography project. But once he starts digging into the case, he realizes that things are not as they seem. Joined by his new friend/ love interest next door neighbor, he becomes fixated on finding out what really happened on the day in 1980 that Crystal Hagen was murdered and Carl's life changed forever. WHAT I LOVED This is not your average psychological thriller, it has many other elements as well: family struggles, escaping ones past, mental disorders, abuse and love. While the mystery unraveling is the main plot of the story, there were many other things going on in the characters lives. I liked Esken's writing style; he kept the plot going and didn't waste many words describing scenery, feelings, people etc., just enough so the reader gets the idea. I think I've been reading too many books lately where I have to skim page after page of overblown descriptions, it was refreshing to not have that in this book. I liked how none of the characters were perfect but they all had redeeming qualities. All of the characters had their own baggage / secrets, most of the characters (with the exception of a couple) used their past mistakes and struggles to become stronger and better. The plot was very very solid, well thought out and didn't have an excess of well placed 'coincidences' like many other books of this genre tend to have. I really couldn't find any plot holes. Again, loved to plot. It kept me completely engaged. WHAT I DIDN'T LOVE There was only scene in the book I didn't find believable (I'm not going to be specific because it would be a spoiler). Joe, who is normally pretty street smart, does something so blatantly dumb that it was hard to believe and was out of character for him. Ill leave it at that. When you read this book ( which you definitely should if you like this genre even a little), you'll know what I'm talking about. I was able to ignore it and still enjoy the story. OVERALL Don't miss this one. It's completely worth your time. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review of The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens *by E***N on April 27, 2016* I stumbled upon this book as a happy accident. I was perusing books on Amazon and in the “Based on Your Purchase History” section I saw it, read the description, and decided to buy it. I am so glad I did. What drew me to it was fact that the main character had an Autistic brother and I have an Autistic sister, so I was curious to see how the author would handle their relationship. He did an extremely good job of conveying the fear, protectiveness, and fierce love someone with an Autistic brother or sister feels toward their sibling. I also loved that he captured the weight of responsibility someone has when caring for a family member who is disabled, and the guilt that they have for feeling burdened by them at times. The main character, Joe Talbert, is a college student who is desperate to make a better life for himself than the one he grew up in. He has a very tumultuous relationship with his alcoholic mother, feels the weight of responsibility for his eighteen year old Autistic brother Jeremy, and his father has been absent his whole life. From a young age he had to be a parent to not only his brother, but also his mother, who would be gone for days at a time and the responsibility fell on Joe to find her and drag her back home from whatever bar she was holed up in. Always busy with class and working the door at a local bar, he finds himself increasingly close to his deadline for an assignment for which he has to find someone older and write a brief biography. Without anyone in his life to interview, he decides to head to a local nursing home, Hillview Manor, and ask if he can interview one of the residents there. Based on the notion that the residents there have led long lives, he thinks surely they would have lots of stories they would be willing to share with him. At first, the receptionist he speaks with is reluctant to let Joe meet with any of their residents, reasoning that the majority have dementia or severe memory loss and wouldn’t be able to share what little memories they have left. Joe persists and asks to speak with the director of the home, and it is then that the receptionist suggests that he could speak with a resident by the name of Carl Iverson. The director quickly dismisses the idea, telling Joe that Carl is a convicted rapist and murderer who has served thirty years in prison and has only recently been paroled due to the fact that he is dying of cancer and only has months to live. However, since Carl is simply a resident and not a prisoner she cannot deny him visitors. After hearing this, Joe is reluctant to pursue this any further, but due to his deadline he asks the director to speak with Carl and convey his request for the interview and call him when she has an answer, to which she agrees. Upon leaving Hillview Manor, Joe is called back home when things start to spiral out of control with his mother as they have many times before. His mother is arrested for a DUI, and again Joe is responsible for the care of his brother, which will seriously inhibit his ability to attend classes and work. Joe brings Jeremy back to his apartment and sets him up with his favorite movie of the moment and tries to get back to work on his assignment. Later, Joe comes home to find his attractive female neighbor, Lila, watching Jeremy’s favorite movie with him and connecting with him in a way few people are able to do. Joe invites Lila to come back for dinner, and to his delight she agrees, but she makes it clear she is only doing so because she enjoys Jeremy’s company. After being granted his request of the interview with Carl, Joe starts to research the rape and murder of Carl’s victim Crystal Marie Hagen on October 29, 1980. He finds out that Crystal was murdered and then set on fire in the shed on Carl’s property, which was next door to where she and her mother, step-father and step-brother had lived. He is able to obtain the transcript of the murder trial and sees the photos of the evidence presented by the prosecution, all of which seem to make it clear that Carl was indeed guilty of the heinous crime. Joe goes back to Hillview Manor to begin his interview with Carl. Expecting to see a hardened criminal, he is taken aback when he sees a withered man who is quickly succumbing to his disease. He begins to talk to Carl, who is weary of Joe’s intentions, but agrees to tell him his story as long as Joe agrees to be truthful, telling him that he wants someone to know what really happened before he dies. Joe learns that Carl is not just the villain he appears to be, but he was also a decorated Vietnam war veteran and his only ally in life is his best friend Virgil, who served alongside him in the war. After his first meeting with Carl, Joe is pulled back to his hometown to attend his mother’s hearing for her DUI where she is given the decision to either pay three thousand dollars to be released or can pay nothing but be hooked to an alcohol monitoring bracelet. Joe’s mother refuses the bracelet because she is adamantly unwilling to abstain from alcohol and cruelly tries to guilt Joe into paying the money, which will leave him unable to pay for school the next semester. However, if his mother doesn’t get released from jail, he will have to leave school to take care of Jeremy, so he pays the money and returns Jeremy and his mother home and heads back to school to at least finish this semester. Joe continues to meet with Carl, who maintains his innocence, and delves deeper into the information he is able to obtain from Carl’s attorney. Although all of the evidence points to Carl as the perpetrator, he begins to see that there are discrepancies that make him start to believe that maybe Carl wasn’t guilty after all. After another altercation with his mother and his mother’s new boyfriend who has begun abusing Jeremy, he brings Jeremy to live with him in his apartment near school. All the while Lila and Joe become closer, and she not only helps Joe with his research into Carl’s case but helps with the responsibility of caring for Jeremy. The deeper Joe’s conversations with Carl become, and the more he learns about the murder of Crystal Hagen, he becomes increasingly doubtful that Carl could have committed the crime. Joe starts to reach out to those involved in the trial including Crystal’s boyfriend at the time, who was the last to see her alive, and her step-father who had allegedly been at the car dealership he owned the afternoon the murder took place. Joe is bombarded with new information and theories and begins to believe in Carl’s innocence, which sets him on a dangerous path to finally find the truth after thirty years. This book has amazing twists and turns and keeps you guessing until the very end. It’s very well written with rich characters and storylines, and is definitely a book that you have to set aside the time to read because it is extremely difficult to put down. For anyone who is a fan of the thriller or murder-mystery genres, I highly recommend this book. Even if you aren’t a fan of those genres, it’s still an amazing story. Hope you pick up a copy of your own and enjoy it for yourself! Taken from my blog:[...] ## Frequently Bought Together - The Life We Bury - The Shadows We Hide: The highly acclaimed sequel to The Life We Bury - The Guise of Another --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.at/products/8305385-the-life-we-bury](https://www.desertcart.at/products/8305385-the-life-we-bury) --- *Product available on Desertcart Austria* *Store origin: AT* *Last updated: 2026-09-08*