Synopsis

“The folklore of friendship,” says my narrator, “suggests we may never find another chum, buddy, or pal like the one we were blessed with at age twelve. Tim was mine.”

The Boys of Summers Run depicts a backroad of deep roots and timeless values, nurtured by family folkways. It describes the friendships only boys can forge while learning of life and loss, the triumphs and tragedies of it all.

This is a “feel good” novel that does not avoid the harsh realities of its rural setting yet celebrates the good will created by infectious generosity. Though Little League Baseball forms the backdrop here, The Boys of Summers Run is not a sports story. Rather, it is a world of choices and expectations, fair or not, well-founded or groundless.

It’s what Barnes and Nobel used to list as a “heart-warmer” genre and thereby an “outlier” in many respects compared to today’s array of fiction. The language is mild. The characters, for the most part, are likable folks doing pleasant things. The ending is not at all bleak but hopeful.

Check out the The Boys of Summer’s Run blog here.