Book description
Ten-year-old Aaron Cooper has witnessed the death of his younger
sister, Pookie, and the trauma has left him unwilling to speak. Aaron
copes with life's challenges by disappearing into his own imagination,
envisioning being captain of the Kon Tiki, driving his sled in the
snowy Klondike, and tiger hunting in India. He is guarded by secret
friends like deposed Hungarian Count Blurtz Shemshoian and Blurtz's
wonder dog, Nipper, who protect him from the creature from the Black
Lagoon-who hides in Aaron's closet at night. The tales he constructs
for himself, the real life stories he is witness to, and his mother's
desperate efforts to bring her son back from the brink, all come to a
head at an emotional family dinner. Set in Indianapolis in 1957, The
Swan is a fictional memoir about enduring love and the weighty nature
of mortality.
"Alternately funny, entertaining, and heartbreaking, The Swan
is a fictional memoir about love, death and what a family can-and
cannot-endure." -Publishers Weekly
Jim Cohee is a freelance writer, based in San Francisco, who has
written for Lonely Planet. The Swan is his first novel.
