Losing August - by Wendy S Simons (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In 1965, a man is found dead in a river, triggering a series of events that, by end of summer, will lead to a murder.

Three teenage boys and their younger sisters have an altercation with two carnies from a dilapidated amusement park in a small Lake Michigan town. One of the carnies is found dead in the river the next day.

When the second carnie is found with his throat slit, the police chief is forced to look next-door to his neighbor's son, one of the boys from the fight.

Intertwined with the main plot of the book, are character studies of two people coming to terms with unfulfilled expectations of parenthood. Women tend kids while men go to work. Kids old enough to be out and about live untethered lives with unpredictable consequences. Men silently carry the burden of war.

Losing August is a coming-of-age story not only for these kids, but for the fictional town of Edgewater. Resting on the shores of Lake Michigan, the once-bustling town is trying to come to terms with what it has become. Edgewater is as much a character as the protagonist, with an arc of its own.

This heartfelt, character-driven narrative explores the underpinnings of flawed people twenty years after the second World War.