Kristin Koval’s debut novel, “Penitence,” delves into the topic of forgiveness in a deep and nuanced way.

It opens with 13-year-old Nora shooting her 14-year-old brother, Nico. 

Koval uses the murder to explore how profound true forgiveness can be by placing Nora and Nico’s parents “in both the very easiest possible position to forgive and the hardest possible position to forgive because if they don’t forgive, they lose their second child, and then it’s the hardest (act) because that second child killed their first child,” she said.

The theme emerged from her own experiences with the process of reconciliation.

“I’ve had very impactful experiences with forgiveness — both being forgiven and forgiving other people,” she said.

She wanted to write about the subject but worried about sounding preachy. Fast-forward a few years, and she began to hear more and more news stories about siblings killing siblings.

“Instead of being interested in the salacious details — because that’s not what interested me — I was interested in the parents and what happened to them afterwards because my heart really broke for them every time I read one of these accounts,” she says. “I started researching, and there are a lot more of these cases out there than you would ever imagine. I realized that opening a novel with a young person killing another young person who is their sibling would give me the opportunity to write about forgiveness and to explore it in ways that would portray both how complicated and messy forgiveness can be — and yet how beneficial and wonderful forgiveness can be.”

But the literary work doesn’t just revolve around that story. Told from four different viewpoints within two different timelines, it engages a host of characters, all of whom have flaws and strengths — even the fictional, small ski town it’s set in shares those qualities.

“I feel like as a society we have gotten very judgmental, so when I started to write this, I wanted to explore forgiveness on both an individual level and a societal level. I knew that if I wanted readers to ever get to a point of forgiveness in this novel without getting stuck on judgment, I would have to figure out how to encourage them to develop empathy for Nora, and then I realized I needed to tell the story from not just Nora’s point of view but from four different point of views,” Koval said.

In addition to Nora’s perspective, readers hear from her mother, the small-town lawyer Martine, and Martine’s son Julian, a big-time city lawyer who ultimately defends Nora — and who shares a past with Nora’s mother involving repressed guilt from a tragic accident years prior.

“I wanted the reader to walk in the shoes of each character. I feel like if you can walk in somebody else’s shoes and develop empathy, then you can eventually feel a little bit of mercy, and if you can feel mercy, then, hopefully, eventually, you could arrive at forgiveness,” Koval said.

Her compassionate approach impressed — and intrigued — Mitzi Rapkin, host and producer of First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing podcast so much that she reached out to Koval to plan a live podcast at TACAW.

“She bravely takes on a subject that is almost unthinkable and skirts the taboo and brings compassion and curiosity to her novel,” Rapkin said. “I think we will have a fascinating discussion that I hope provides an expanded view of how to deal with grace and forgiveness. As human beings, our capacity to deal with the mysteries of life can always evolve, and that’s what I love about reading and talking to authors. We get the benefit of not having to deal with some horror ourselves, but instead can learn vicariously without the personal trauma. This discussion has the potential to expand all of our minds in new ways.”

Koval’s storied path from attorney to author

Koval’s journey from a long career as a trust and estate and tax attorney to a traditionally published author just might be as interesting as her book.

She always longed to be a writer but felt she needed “to make a living.” Yet, in 1995, as a summer associate in her law firm, she wrote — on legal paper — about why she didn’t like being a lawyer and how she really wanted to write a book. Still, she had to take care of her college debt. 

She tried three separate times during her legal career to write a book but found she either didn’t have the creative energy between working and raising kids or didn’t have the necessary creative writing skills and community. 

In 2018, she stumbled upon a free writing class in Boulder, and everything changed. She began surrounding herself with a supportive writing group and taking classes in Boulder and Denver.

Granted, before publishing “Penitence,” she persisted through “thousands” of submissions — with plenty of rejections — to literary magazines, as well as writing her first novel, which also garnered rejections and sits in her drawer to this day. 

“A lot of people look at (‘Penitence’), and they see overnight success, but I had a whole other book. I think I learned how to write on that first book,” she said.

“Penitence” quickly attracted an agent, who did actually sell it overnight.

Yet, it all took a leap of faith. Koval didn’t plan to leave her legal career so soon, but the creative yearning won out; she didn’t want to “wake up” when she was 80 and say: “I wish I would’ve tried to write.”

“It was a little hard to walk away from my identity as a lawyer, but I just knew that I needed to try, and I didn’t want to live with the regret of not trying,” she said.

Though she never practiced criminal defense law, she spoke the language, so she had an easier time researching relevant statues and interviewing criminal defense attorneys, which adds veracity to her compelling story.

To meet Koval and hear more about her story — and “Penitence,” which Barnes & Noble chose as its February pick of Book of the Month — RSVP for the free podcast at 6:30 p.m., May 13 at TACAW.