In 1973, in idyllic Lakewood, New York, this beautiful coming-of-age story is about a lonely college student who returns to his hometown eleven years after his twin sister's death. Robert English accepts a summer job housesitting for his history professor. If Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel proclaimed you can never return home, Robert attempts the impossible, to return to his childhood to reconcile his past, to find answers to his sister's death, to have a summer of adventure and love, to overcome the family torment for what they did not prevent, and to ease the guilt he suffers as a sole survivor. While housesitting, Robert returns to his childhood to reconcile his family's tragedy, but along the way, he finds adventure, love, and sex. This young medical student, flawed like all men and women, loses the one woman he truly loves and finds himself alone again. Lust, lies, and seduction tempt him away from her and leave him damaged, almost beyond repair. He must find a way back into her heart.
Author Biography:
William Walsh is the author of seven other books, including the award-winning collection of poems, Fly Fishing in Times Square (Červená Barva Press). He is the director of the Reinhardt University undergraduate creative writing program and the MFA program. Widely published in some of the finest journals including Five Points, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, and Literary Matters, he is also known for his literary interviews, which have included: Czeslaw Milosz, Joseph Brodsky, A.R. Ammons, Richard Blanco, Eavan Boland, Pat Conroy, Harry Crews, James Dickey, Rita Dove, Mary Hood, Ursula Le Guin, Andrew Lytle, and Lee Smith. Born in Jamestown, NY and raised in Lakewood until moving south in 1972, his historical family has resided in Chautauqua County since pre-Revolutionary War. A graduate of Georgia State University and Vermont College, he resides in Atlanta with his family. He is the director of the undergraduate and graduate creative writing programs at Reinhardt University, in Waleska, where he teaches literature and creative writing. He is the editor of the James Dickey Review. When not writing, he spends time with his family, enjoys competitive tennis and golf, as well as playing chess internationally.
