Mary Westra reads from her memoir, After the Murder of My Son

After the Murder of My Son chronicles unthinkable tragedy, heralds the power of love.

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In the summer of 2001, Peter Westra was 24 years old, gregarious, handsome, active, a successful young investment banker based in New York City but on temporary assignment in London. Dedicated to his family and friends, he had flown home to Minnesota for his grandmother’s 90th birthday party, then hopped on a plane to Atlantic City to meet up with his Middlebury college buddies for a friend’s bachelor party. Just 15 hours later he was dead, kicked to death on a sidewalk by bouncers outside a nightclub.

After the Murder of My Son is his mother’s story of the day her life was shattered and the intimate retelling of how she put the shards back together again, to save herself and her family. Author Mary Westra bares her soul and takes readers along on her journey through utter grief, through the emotionally draining judicial process, to seeking hope and purpose, and finally finding a new normal and reclaiming life.

“In Mary Westra’s story of heartbreak and hope, all of us can see the fragility, the strength, and the love that informs our own lives,” --Jeffrey Zaslow, coauthor of The Last Lecture