Eden Close

Andrew, an advertising executive in his mid-30s, returns to his hometown in upstate New York to attend his mother's funeral. He has been planning to remain only a few days, but from the moment he swings his shiny black BMW into the drive of his parents' run-down farmhouse, a flood of memories draws him into lingering on. In a series of flashbacks, we see how Andrew's childhood has been inextricably interwoven with the tragic legacy of the beautiful girl next door, Eden Close.An adopted child, Eden had early on learned to avoid the mother who did not want her and to please the father who did. She also aimed to ingratiate herself with Andrew and his friends, first by trying to be one of the boys and later by seducing them. Frightened by Eden's transformation from tomboy-pal to adolescent femme fatale, Andrew in turn wrapped himself in private dreams for a future that would take him away from the isolated farm community in which he had grown up. Then one hot night he was awakened by gunshots and piercing screams from the adjacent farmhouse: Mr. Close had been killed and Eden, blinded. The murder was never officially solved; the chief suspect, one of Andrew's friends, died before he could be arrested.Now, 17 years later, Andrew begins to nose out the grisly story. As the truth about Eden's past comes to light, so does Andrew's strange and binding attachment to this lost girl of his youth reveal itself.Eden Close