Book description
Two friends, Walter Dunmore and Al Clark, are the only members of
their bomber crew to survive an airforce plane crash in World War II
Canada. But they must struggle with the sub-zero wilderness of
Newfoundland's Labrador coast until help arrives. Meanwhile, on the
homefront, in a small farming community, Walt's wife Dottie struggles
with her own battles: loneliness, anxiety and her attraction to an
itinerant farm worker.
Only one man comes home alive from Labrador, but the lives of their
two families remain forever entwined. Years later, in Chicago where
they've all moved, questions of loyalty and bravery ensnare their
children. And as they confront the horrors of Vietnam one of them will
be left to choose between revenge or sacrifice. The novel follows the
characters into old age, when decades-old secrets are laid bare to
redeem the present and illuminate the past.
Rebecca Johns explores with remarkable grace and intimacy themes of
love and infidelity, bravery and cowardice, domesticity and marriage.
Rebecca Johns was born in Illinois in 1971. She has worked for
publications such as
LIFE
and
Woman's Day
, and her articles have appeared in
Cosmopolitan
,
Mademoiselle
,
Self
and
Seventeen
. She is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She was
awarded the Michener-Copernicus Award for this, her first novel.
