--- ### INTRODUCTION > Garner is interested in ordinary people who snap and do heinous things; whose ‘self-restraint suddenly stops working’. She knows such human beings are ‘just an exploded version’ of what many of us – most of us, probably – fantasise about in moments of intense anger or distress. --- ### This House of Grief > Often, in the seven years to come, I would regret that I had not simply blessed them that day and walked away. --- > Countless men declared in anger and distress that it couldn’t possibly have been an accident; that a loving father would never leave the car and swim away. He would fight to save his kids, and, if he failed, he would go to the bottom with them. Rare were the ones who, after making such a declaration, paused and added in a lower voice, ‘At least, that’s what I hope I’d do.’ --- > When the paramedics had pulled up on the shoulder of the road, they found Farquharson standing near the fence, wet through, with a blanket round his shoulders. His skin was cold and he was shivering. His pulse rate was up, his blood pressure normal. Neither of his lungs was wheezing or crackling. They asked him to cough. He brought up no phlegm. Breathalysed, he blew zero. He had no history of blackouts, he said, but had had a dry cough for the past few days. --- > Often, in the seven years to come, I would regret that I had not simply blessed them that day and walked away. --- > Countless men declared in anger and distress that it couldn’t possibly have been an accident; that a loving father would never leave the car and swim away. He would fight to save his kids, and, if he failed, he would go to the bottom with them. Rare were the ones who, after making such a declaration, paused and added in a lower voice, ‘At least, that’s what I hope I’d do.’ --- > When the paramedics had pulled up on the shoulder of the road, they found Farquharson standing near the fence, wet through, with a blanket round his shoulders. His skin was cold and he was shivering. His pulse rate was up, his blood pressure normal. Neither of his lungs was wheezing or crackling. They asked him to cough. He brought up no phlegm. Breathalysed, he blew zero. He had no history of blackouts, he said, but had had a dry cough for the past few days. ---