The Accident

'This is the first time I have done anything like this. Notes, yes, I have often taken notes. Words, phrases, spoken, shouted, whispered, mumbled, striking me as important, not always for a reason I could identify without reflection, warranting the writing, the preserving, at least for a while.'

So begins psychotherapist Rachel Frieling's account of her meetings with Aidan, a fifteen-year-old boy whose elder sister has recently drowned while on a family holiday. What starts as an attempt to help a troubled teenager to cope with the loss of his sister soon develops into an encounter with male violence, in a toxic environment of bullying, misogyny, and sexual rivalry.