A Summons to Memphis
by Peter Taylor | 
In the Tennessee Country
by Peter Taylor | 
Take Me With You
by Catherine Ryan Hyde | 
Empire Falls
by Richard Russo | 
Anne of Windy Poplars
by Lucy Maud Montgomery | 
The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes | 
Out Stealing Horses
by Per Petterson | 
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
by David Eggers | 
2666
by Roberto Bolano | 
Buying the Farm
by Kimberly Conn | 
Flight Behavior
by Barbara Kingsolver | 
Harbor of the Heart
by Katherine Spencer | 
The Book of Ruth
by Jane Hamilton | 
Everyman
by Philip Roth | 
We Were the Mulvaneys
by Joyce Carol Oates | 
Old School
by Tobias Wolff | 
South of Broad
by Pat Conroy | 
Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories
by Ghassan Kanafani | 
The Wake Up
by Catherine Ryan Hyde | 
The Risk Pool
by Richard Russo |
Gerald Dudley is an executive at a hardware company in St. Louis, living the quintessential bachelor life with his young son, Quint. He is also a man who aspires beyond his means and class. When Gerald meets the wealthy divorcee Ann Lauterbach and the two marry, life changes irrevocably for Quint. He enters a social world of private schools and debutante balls known to him only through his father's longings. As Quint's attachment to his stepmother and her "means" grows, her marriage to his father begins to crumble in small, subtle ways, which ultimately leads to larger, more devastating consequences.