Christmas at Long Lake - A Childhood Memory

Award-winning novelist Rick Skwiot's critically acclaimed account of a rustically charming yet fateful childhood Christmas, with a family and a nation on the brink of unsettling change and loss of innocence. Christmas at Long Lake returns us to Christmas Day 1953 as seen through the eyes of a child. When the author, as a six-year-old, learns on Christmas Eve that his father's layoff at a steel mill threatens their country home, he works to save it. Along the way we meet a cast of affecting characters: forbidding grandmothers, tribal country-kids, a destructive vacuum-cleaner salesman, and dutiful and affectionate parents who create an aura of hard yet unfailing love within the author's childhood environs. Skwiot takes us on a sensory and esthetic journey to frozen lakes, frosted fields, squawking jays, and the muted palette of gray Illinois winter afternoons, carrying us into a past of coal stoves, hand-pumps, and independence, as well as to the fragrant markets and redbrick alleys of a segregated St. Louis. Christmas at Long Lake manages to compress an era into 36 hours and 156 pages. It will likely be read with nostalgic recognition by the author's baby-boomer generation, with longing for simpler times by older Americans, and with some disbelief by younger readers who do not realize how much this nation has changed in 50 years.
ASIN: 0982859139
VSKU: BVV.0982859139.G
Condition: Good
Author/Artist:Skwiot, Rick
Binding: Paperback
Note: Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.
Condition Notes: The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact including the dust cover, if applicable . Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.