In the days before sunscreen, soccer practice, MTV, and Amber Alerts, boys roamed freely in the American West--fishing, hunting, hiking, pausing to skinny-dip in river or pond. Douglas Thayer was such a boy. In this poignant, often humorous memoir, he depicts his Utah Valley boyhood during the Great Depression and World War II.
Known in some circles as a Mormon Hemingway, Thayer has created a richly detailed work that shares cultural DNA with Frank McCourt's "Angela's Ashes, " Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, " and William Golding's "Lord of the Flies." His narrative at...
In the days before sunscreen, soccer practice, MTV, and Amber Alerts, boys roamed freely in the American West--fishing, hunting, hiking, pausing to...
When Harris Thatcher's father dies, the boy's journey into manhood becomes complicated with questions of faith, the meaning of life, and the capriciousness of death. Harris soon finds himself preaching the Mormon gospel as one of the first missionaries to West Germany following the devastation of World War II. Little does he know that his own war horrors await him upon his return home, when he is drafted into the Korean War. Starting out in the same 1940s-era Provo, Utah, that Thayer brought to life in his memoir Hooligan: A Mormon Boyhood, this novel deepens and darkens as Harris is drawn...
When Harris Thatcher's father dies, the boy's journey into manhood becomes complicated with questions of faith, the meaning of life, and the capriciou...
Weeks away from turning sixteen, Kyle Hooper longs to get his license and (legally) drive the old Suburban his Grandpa Hooper left him. Sardonic, light-hearted, a prankster, Kyle wants more freedom in his Colorado Mormon life, including the freedom to date any number of lovelies, as he calls them.
His mother, Lucille, a part-time trauma nurse and a devoted Mormon mom, wants Kyle to get serious about school and preparing for his mission. In vivid detail she often warns him about the consequences of a misspent youth-drug addiction, arrest and imprisonment, expulsion from school, early...
Weeks away from turning sixteen, Kyle Hooper longs to get his license and (legally) drive the old Suburban his Grandpa Hooper left him. Sardonic, l...
