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The summer Michael Smolij turns sixteen,
his father disappears. One by one other men also vanish from
the blue-collar neighborhood outside Detroit where their fathers
before them had lived, raised families, and, in a more promising
era, worked. One man props open the door to his shoe store
and leaves a note. "I'm going to the moon," it reads. "I took
the cash."
The wives drink, brawl, and sleep around,
gradually settling down to make new lives and shaking off
the belief in an American dream that, like their husbands,
has proven to be a thing of the past. Unable to leave the
neighborhood their fathers abandoned, Michael and his friends
stumble through their twenties until the restlessness of the
fathers blooms in them, threatening to carry them away.
This is a haunting, unforgettable debut
novel for anyone who has ever been left longing.
Dean Bakopoulos, a former
bookseller, has published fiction in Zoetrope and other journals
and was named one of America's best new fiction writers by
Virginia Quarterly in 2004. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
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