Walter McCloud was constantly eclipsed by those around him - his beautiful, talented friends, his flamboyant relatives, his golden-boy brother, Daniel. He was always the outsider, never the star. But the summer of 1972 was a turning point in the life of fifteen-year-old Walter. It was the time when he realized that his great passion for dance would never be matched by his talent; the time when he discovered the funny agony of first love' and the time when he watched his brother declining into a cruel, untimely death. It is only when, twenty-four years later, Walter returns to fight for the survival of his childhood Eden, his family's lakeside summer home, that he finally discovers a way to reconcile himself to the past in a way that gives hope for the future.

Author Biography

Jane Hamilton's first novel, the prizewinning The Book of Ruth, was selected for Oprah Winfrey's influential Book Club, as was her second novel, A Map of the World. Her most recent work, The Short History of a Prince, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize. Her new novel is Disobedience. She lives on an apple farm in Wisconsin.