ISBN: 9781432788865

Can faith healing save a dying boy? He carried the boy out of the house and down the street. It was a warm day, the beginning of summer, but he held the boy close so he wouldn't catch col… Altro …

Can faith healing save a dying boy? He carried the boy out of the house and down the street. It was a warm day, the beginning of summer, but he held the boy close so he wouldn't catch cold, because you never knew, even on a day like this when the sun was shining. There were shadows as he passed the live oak trees, brief bursts of cool air, anything could happen. How light the boy was Surely no more than sixty pounds. He brushed the boy's hair out of his eyes. "Don't be afraid," he said. "I'm taking care of you. We're just going for a walk. I'm going to tell you everything now." The dream was always the same. First, piano music ripples through the night house. Then a woman is yelling, but he can't make out the words. His mother? A glass shatters against a wall. "Don't tell me I have to stay here " a man shouts. His father? Someone pounds the piano keys, and Danny flinches in his sleep. Footsteps running. A door slams somewhere in the house. Silence, as though the house is holding its breath. "Daddy?" Danny moans. "I need you." Outside in the driveway a car's engine roars, tires crunch over gravel, a screeching of brakes, then nothing but a woman weeping and palm trees rustling in the wind. Danny tries to open his eyes, but he can't move, his body is paralyzed, someone is pushing him down, down into the bed, he's gasping for air, and then, laughter. A voice: "Come now, this isn't necessary. Just leave it behind," and he rises up out of his body so easily he's amazed. He glides through the house like a ghost, past the forlorn piano, his mother huddled on the living room sofa, his grandmother standing like a grim sentinel in the kitchen, and out the open door. "Good-bye," he whispers as he floats over lemon trees, past the pyracantha, its flame-colored berries blue in the moonlight, and up into the clouds toward Mount Wilson. Then he looks down and sees his father carrying him in his arms. Struggling with cystic fibrosis, fourteen-year-old talented and brilliant Danny searches for clues about his missing father. Danny's illness attracts an unlikely retinue from California to Arizona - his eccentric, divisive Jewish family; his rambunctious Gentile cousins; two prostitutes in downtown Los Angeles; a motorcycle gang called the Prickly Pears; an ex-rabbi; psychics; various bizarre faith healers; Danny's dead grandfather and other friendly spirits. All - including Earl, head of the Tucson Atheist Society, who Danny mistakenly believes is his father, and Clyde, a faith healer who is Danny's real father - are connected with Danny's destiny, culminating in a grand, Pasadena faith healing. Music runs through the novel, as does love, like a song with many variations: Danny's longing for his father, his grandmother's struggle to love her Gentile grandchildren, his mother's lust for the ex-rabbi, his cousin Jessamyn's sometimes misguided efforts to protect Danny and, at the center of the novel, a zany wedding at One-Eyed Pete's bar in Tucson. The lesson everyone but Danny's mother learns is acceptance, of themselves and each other. Media ><

ISBN: 9781432788865

Can faith healing save a dying boy? He carried the boy out of the house and down the street. It was a warm day, the beginning of summer, but he held the boy close so he wouldn't catch col… Altro …

Can faith healing save a dying boy? He carried the boy out of the house and down the street. It was a warm day, the beginning of summer, but he held the boy close so he wouldn't catch cold, because you never knew, even on a day like this when the sun was shining. There were shadows as he passed the live oak trees, brief bursts of cool air, anything could happen. How light the boy was Surely no more than sixty pounds. He brushed the boy's hair out of his eyes. "Don't be afraid," he said. "I'm taking care of you. We're just going for a walk. I'm going to tell you everything now." The dream was always the same. First, piano music ripples through the night house. Then a woman is yelling, but he can't make out the words. His mother? A glass shatters against a wall. "Don't tell me I have to stay here " a man shouts. His father? Someone pounds the piano keys, and Danny flinches in his sleep. Footsteps running. A door slams somewhere in the house. Silence, as though the house is holding its breath. "Daddy?" Danny moans. "I need you." Outside in the driveway a car's engine roars, tires crunch over gravel, a screeching of brakes, then nothing but a woman weeping and palm trees rustling in the wind. Danny tries to open his eyes, but he can't move, his body is paralyzed, someone is pushing him down, down into the bed, he's gasping for air, and then, laughter. A voice: "Come now, this isn't necessary. Just leave it behind," and he rises up out of his body so easily he's amazed. He glides through the house like a ghost, past the forlorn piano, his mother huddled on the living room sofa, his grandmother standing like a grim sentinel in the kitchen, and out the open door. "Good-bye," he whispers as he floats over lemon trees, past the pyracantha, its flame-colored berries blue in the moonlight, and up into the clouds toward Mount Wilson. Then he looks down and sees his father carrying him in his arms. Struggling with cystic fibrosis, fourteen-year-old talented and brilliant Danny searches for clues about his missing father. Danny's illness attracts an unlikely retinue from California to Arizona - his eccentric, divisive Jewish family; his rambunctious Gentile cousins; two prostitutes in downtown Los Angeles; a motorcycle gang called the Prickly Pears; an ex-rabbi; psychics; various bizarre faith healers; Danny's dead grandfather and other friendly spirits. All - including Earl, head of the Tucson Atheist Society, who Danny mistakenly believes is his father, and Clyde, a faith healer who is Danny's real father - are connected with Danny's destiny, culminating in a grand, Pasadena faith healing. Music runs through the novel, as does love, like a song with many variations: Danny's longing for his father, his grandmother's struggle to love her Gentile grandchildren, his mother's lust for the ex-rabbi, his cousin Jessamyn's sometimes misguided efforts to protect Danny and, at the center of the novel, a zany wedding at One-Eyed Pete's bar in Tucson. The lesson everyone but Danny's mother learns is acceptance, of themselves and each other. Media ><