Shooting Out the Lights unravels like a mystery novel, but Kim Fairley's memoir wrestles with the very real secrets we keep from each other and the roles we play to protect ourselves. Centered around her marriage to a man thirty-two years older, who had lost his son from his first marriage in a gun accident, the story explores the taboo of wide age gap love.
Twenty-four-year-old Kim and fifty-six-year-old Vern become close friends, marry, and soon learn Kim is pregnant. But Kim's life is turned upside down when the widow of Vern's dear friend calls Vern in need of a favor. She convinces Vern to take her eleven-year-old son whose behaviour challenges Kim's devotion, trust, and the underpinnings of her marriage and serves as a reminder of the power of talking in coming to terms with massive grief.
