Tiny Americans

<p>From the National Bestselling author of <em>The Boat Runner</em> comes a poignant luminous novel that follows one family over decades and across the world--perfect for fans of the film <em>Boyhood</em>.</p><p><em>Western New York 1978</em>: Jamie Lewis and Connor Thurber watch their parents' destructive dance of loving hating and drinking. Terrance Thurber spends this year teaching his children about the natural world: they listen to the heartbeat of trees track animal footprints sleep under the star-filled sky. Despite these lessons he doesn't show them how to survive without him. And when these seasons of trying and failing to quit booze and be a better man are over Terrance is gone.</p><p>Alone with their artist mother Catrin the Thurber children are left to grapple with the anger they feel for the one parent who deserted them and a growing resentment for the one who didn't. As Catrin withdraws into her own world Jamie throws herself into painting while her brothers smash out their rage in brutal no-holds-barred football games with neighborhood kids. Once they can leave--Jamie for college Lewis for the navy and Connor for work--they don't look back.</p><p>But Terrance does. Crossing the country sobering up and starting over has left him with razor-sharp regret. Terrance doesn't know that Jamie now an academic inhabits an ever-shrinking circle of loneliness; that Lewis a merchant marine fears life on dry land; that Connor struggles to connect with the son he sees teetering on an all-too-familiar edge. He only knows that he has one last try to build a bridge through the years to his family.</p><p>Composed of a series of touchstone moments <em>Tiny Americans</em> is a thrilling and bittersweet rendering of a family that much like the tides continues to come together and drift apart.</p><p> </p>