It’s been one year since 18-year-old Michael Brown was fatally shot by Darren Wilson, the former Ferguson police officer who gunned down the unarmed black teen on August 9, 2014. Brown’s death, which came just weeks after Staten Island resident Eric Garner was choked to death by NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo, sparked national protests that called for, among other demands, the end of state violence upon America’s black citizenry.

I was absorbed in 2014 by true crime. Like everybody else, I was completely addicted to Sarah Koenig's impressive investigative reporting of a murder case on season one of This American Life's offshoot podcast, Serial. I was also really impressed by a nuanced feature article in New York by Hanna Rosin called "By Noon They'd Both be Dead," about a mother's failed attempt to murder her teenage daughter, who has autism. That essay dared to ask tough questions about the physical, psychological, emotional and financial toll of autism upon the mothers of autistic children. I recently stopped writing a novel about a similar case because it was just too difficult for me to really go there. I was glad to see someone else had.