A Rip in Heaven

While the book focuses on many members of the family, Tom is the central protagonist, and most of the story’s action revolves around him. Early in the book Tom has begun to change from a disappointing, below-average high school student to a promising member of the fire department and a maturing young adult. This transition is thanks to the influence of his beloved cousin Julie Kerry, who helps him find peace and clarity in his life. Tom’s relationship with his father Gene is also improving due to his friendship with Julie. Still, he retains some teenage quirks at 19 years old: He smokes excessively and sneaks out with Julie and Robin the night of their murder.

Tom transforms throughout the narrative, most obviously from a teenager to an adult, as he is forced to cope with the horrible events he witnesses. Cummins plays with this transformation by alternately characterizing Tom in hyperbolically childlike ways in some moments and as a confident man in others. The point of this confusion is to illustrate how Tom’s natural development becomes irrevocably altered and muddled by the numerous tragedies and injustices he faces beginning with his cousins’ murders. Tom also undergoes a more subtle transition over the course of the narrative, from feeling an intense culpability over his cousins’ murders to finally releasing himself from his guilt. In this way, he is also finally able to let go of the media’s villainization of him and his fixation on the killers, which allows him to simply grieve for Julie and Robin.

Julie Kerry is a more prominent figure than her sister Robin, who was also murdered on the bridge that night. This is because Julie was the closest with Tom, on whom much of the book is focused. Julie was a highly passionate young woman, just 20 years old at the time of her tragic murder on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge. She was a passionate poet, writing poetry that focused largely on her activism and humanitarian ideals. She volunteered at Greenpeace and at Amnesty International, an organization that symbolizes Julie to the author. In addition to telling the story of her and her sister’s murder and its effect on their family, the book is also a memorial written for Julie. The book frequently quotes her poetry and describes her almost superhuman goodness and enthusiasm for changing the world for the better.

While Julie never had the opportunity to grow and change, she was transitioning from teenager to adult at the time of her death. As Cummins states in the Afterword, Julie matured decades in the last minutes of her life, as she held and comforted her sister before they were pushed off the bridge. In a sense, Julie’s character evolves throughout the narrative as Cummins continually explores her lost potential as a poet, activist, and humanitarian, and her continuing effect on those she loved. During Julie’s life, she fought for justice and equality, practicing what she preached, as Cummins phrases it. Those who knew her were built up and supported by her good nature and sage wisdom, none less than Tom. Tom, her cousin and best friend, grows from a deadbeat high school student to a mature adult through her influence before her death. While the book is a memorial to Julie and to Robin, Julie’s goodness and passion live on in Tom and the rest of her family.