In April 1991, in a little Wisconsin town about a hundred miles southwest of the town where I grew up, a misfit boy was kidnapped by a group of high school kids who, later, would testify they'd merely meant to frighten him, to drive him around for a while. Somehow they ended up at the rive, whooping and hollering on a two-lane bridge. Somehow the boy was shoved, he jumped, he slipped--acounts vary--into the icy water. The kids told police they never heard a splash; one reported seeing a brilliant flash of light. (Several people in the area witnessed a similar light, while others recalled...
In April 1991, in a little Wisconsin town about a hundred miles southwest of the town where I grew up, a misfit boy was kidnapped by a group of hig...
"When my brother disappeared in 1984, I began to see myself in the third person as if my life were a story being told to someone else."
Abigail Schiller lives a seemingly normal childhood in a rural Catholic commuinity in Wisconsin. But that life is shattered when her younger brother, Sam, vanishes at the age of seventeen, fleeing their father's rigid rules of masculinity and the violence their mother denies. Finally, thirty years old and expecting a child of her own, Abby is determined to retrace her lost sibling's dark descent--embarking upon an emotional journey that will...
"When my brother disappeared in 1984, I began to see myself in the third person as if my life were a story being told to someone else."
An epic novel by an award-winning author chronicles the settling of the Ohio River Valley, home to the defiant Shawnee Indians, who vow to defend their land against the seemingly unstoppable.
An epic novel by an award-winning author chronicles the settling of the Ohio River Valley, home to the defiant Shawnee Indians, who vow to defend thei...
Combining the modern-farm-life realities of Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres with the quirky humor and eccentric characters of Carolyn Chute's The Beans of Egypt, Maine, Q Road is a charming debut from Bonnie Jo Campbell. Greenland Township, Michigan: On the same acres where farmers once displaced Potawatomi Indians, suburban developers now supplant farmers and prefab homes spring up in last year's cornfields. All along Q Road--or "Queer Road," as the locals call it--the old, rural life collides weirdly with the new. With a cast of lovingly rendered eccentrics and a...
Combining the modern-farm-life realities of Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres with the quirky humor and eccentric characters of Carolyn Chute's...
A nostalgic story about a Minnesota boy's search for belonging in a complex world. "In this wise, witty story set in West St. Paul in the '60s, a kid named Harlan navigates life by focusing on the Twins baseball team, a comic metaphor for hope. Sport is fat with small pleasures. It is a homer and a gift to all of us grownup knothole-game kids. There's a lot to love in this quiet little book, most of all its subtle wisdom about establishing individuality and finding joy amid chaos--in short, aboutgrowing up."
A nostalgic story about a Minnesota boy's search for belonging in a complex world. "In this wise, witty story set in West St. Paul in the '60s, a kid ...
Luba lives with her parents in a Chicago neighborhood full of others like themselves-immigrants from Ukraine. Her parents want only two things: to enjoy a new life in America and to hold on to the old ways-the church, the language, the traditions-of Ukrainian culture. They want these things for Luba, too.
Luba wants only the first part of their wish. She wants to leave her neighborhood-not to mention Ukraine-behind. It's 1968, and protesting American students have taken to the city streets. Thinking that it's time she breaks step with her heritage and gets into step with her peers, Luba...
Luba lives with her parents in a Chicago neighborhood full of others like themselves-immigrants from Ukraine. Her parents want only two things: to enj...
