Sweet Hearts - by Melanie Rae Thon (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A fierce, tender, and utterly original work, a story of family, love, and the mysteries that bind us

In this haunting and unforgettable novel, first published in 2001, Melanie Rae Thon entwines family myth with the currents of American history, tracing the patterns of loss, wandering, and the quiet violence that shapes generations. At its center are Flint, a sixteen-year-old caught between boyhood's follies and the hardened instincts of a criminal, and his younger sister, Cecile, whose loyalty and fear are impossible to separate.

After years behind bars at the Landers School for Boys, Flint escapes, returning to the only person he can trust--Cecile. Together, they plunge into a desperate, lawless journey: robbing a local doctor, stealing their mother's car, and following the shadows of their ancestors south to the Crow Indian Reservation. Along the way, the boundaries between accomplice, captive, and family blur, and the intensity of their bond becomes both refuge and threat.

Observing, guiding, and decoding their world is Marie Zimmer, the children's deaf aunt. Though silent, she carries the knowledge of generations. Through Marie's quiet witness and Flint and Cecile's desperate journey, the echoes of the past unfold, a haunting testament to the fragile, fierce threads of violence, devotion, and survival that bind this family across time and silence.

About the Author

MELANIE RAE THON is the author of two collections of lyric fictions, The Bodies of Birds and Silence & Song; the novels The Voice of the River, Sweet Hearts, Iona Moon, and Meteors in August; and the story collections In This Light: New and Selected Stories, First, Body--for which she won the Whiting Award for Fiction in 1997--and Girls in the Grass. Thon's work has been included in two editions of The Best American Short Stories, three Pushcart Prize anthologies, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. She is a recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Hopwood Award, and a Writer's Residency from the Lannan Foundation. Originally from Montana, Thon lives in Salt Lake City, where she is professor emeritus at the University of Utah.

STACEY D'ERASMO is the author of five novels and two books of nonfiction. Her novel The Complicities was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. She is frequently a faculty member at the Breadloaf Writers Conference and was a Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford University; received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Fiction in 2009; and was the 2010-11 Sovern/Columbia Affiliated Fellow at the American Academy in Rome.