The Half Brother

Zusatztext 77527605 Informationen zum Autor Holly LeCraw is the author of The Swimming Pool . Her work has appeared in The Millions, Post Road, and various anthologies, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. A native of Atlanta, she now lives outside Boston with her family. Klappentext Charlie Garrett was never sure of his place during his Atlanta childhood. His dad died in Vietnam before he was born; he always felt like a guest in his stepfather's wealthy family. It is only as a young teacher at the shabby-genteel Abbott School in Massachusetts that he can finally find himself. He begins his reinvention! falling in love with May Bankhead! the school chaplain's beautiful daughter! and leading a charmed life-until he breaks both her heart and his own. May leaves Abbottsford! he thinks forever. Nearly a decade later! the fragile peace that Charlie has built is shattered by the arrival of his golden-boy half brother-and the return of his first love. Trying to set things right! Charlie pushes his brother and May together! inadvertently creating a triangle of secrets! regrets! and desires! that threatens to consume them all. 9780385531955|excerpt LeCraw / THE HALF BROTHER I May One Mid-­August. On the quad, the only sound is a far-­off angry machine, a leaf blower, somewhere in the vicinity of the library. Otherwise I’d say I have the whole place to myself, except for the bees. They’re delirious in the heat, in the flowering shrubs and trees, buried headfirst, ecstatic. As I walk by a seven-­foot-­tall rose of Sharon I hear their intoxicated hum and realize the whole little tree is vibrating, throbbing with them. Summer here in the North still surprises me. The heat, when it finally comes, is heavy and thorough, and must be appreciated while it lasts, which the bees know. I walk slowly up one of the diagonal paths. I could stop right here, lie down in the hot green grass; do a dance; get naked. Of course there’s sure to be someone in the quiet buildings, behind a window closed for the AC, someone who’d look down and see Charlie Garrett pulling a nutter—­but if I had to lay money, this very moment, I’d bet no. I’d bet I was all alone. Into the cloister. Or cloister-­let. Ah, the Anglophile benefactors of the Abbott School! My shoes whisper against the flagstones. The air is suddenly chilled, almost wet. There are stone benches along the walls, and ahead, the heavy wood of the chapel’s side door, closed today. And, just before that door, a girl—­or rather a girl’s legs, long brown legs stretched out, and I know them. Most definitely, I know them. “Miss Bankhead,” I say. I call her that automatically, without irony, although there’s no need for formality anymore. May Bankhead is twenty now, no longer my student; I’m twenty-­nine; I can be her peer. In the letters we used to write, during her first two years of college, we’d been edging toward that equality, but I haven’t heard from her in months. “Hi there!” she says. “Mr. Garrett.” Quicker than I. Of course. “You look so cool,” I say. “You always look so cool.” She smiles, a private smile. Otherwise she doesn’t move, but she gives the impression not of complete stillness but of an almost imperceptible undulation, as though she were an underwater plant. “I’m ruining your solitude,” I say. She shakes her head, dreamily. “I love it here in the summer,” she says. “I love the silence.” At that exact moment the leaf blower revs again, and we laugh, and whatever spell was on her is broken. “Aren’t you going to sit down?” May says, and scoots over a little on the bench. I sit down and now we are spectators together, looking out at the empty green. “So you come here too?” she says. “To indulge your monkish fantasies?” “What, do you have nun fantasies?” I say. Her incongruous dimple appears. Normally, she looks rather seri...

Product details

• Authors: Holly Lecraw
• Publisher: Anchor Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 26.01.2016
• EAN: 9780307474452
• ISBN: 978-0-307-47445-2
• No. of pages: 288
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 203 mm x 20 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature