American Sycamore
A Novel
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4.7 • 3 Ratings
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A moving novel about the devotions of friendship and the power of love to heal, American Sycamore celebrates the American experiment and the importance of giving a damn.
Rob Barrow’s devotion to the American experiment has never wavered. For forty years he has devoted his legal brilliance to advancing the essential American ideals enshrined by the Founders. Rob is the best kind of throwback—a classic American character, reserved and respectful, yet with a fierce determination to protect the people and ideas that matter most. Rob stands his ground. He does not yield to the ridicule of malign political forces, nor to the mounting challenges of aging—loss, grief, even an invasion of rogue cells.
While AMERICAN SYCAMORE is Rob’s story, it is also the story of his beloved wife Julia, an author who believes America has lost her way and seeks to understand why. It is the story of their dearest friend, Dr. Ray Witter, a battlefield surgeon in Vietnam and now the medical school dean. When we first meet Rob, Julia, and Ray in graduate school during the 1970s, they are on the idealistic mission to make things right in America. A sense of purpose animates their lives while a commitment to each other powers them through the decades strengthening their bond along the way.
AMERICAN SYCAMORE celebrates what ennobles and buoys us—always welcome, but especially so in these mad times. The novel will appeal to readers of literary fiction and upmarket commercial fiction including character-driven mysteries. This is a novel for readers drawn to complex characters facing life’s challenges with grace and the power of shared love and friendship. It is a story that unfolds on several different levels with surprising twists and turns and, ultimately, a mystery at the heart of the matter.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Healthcare journalist and novelist Kenney (Leading Through a Pandemic) delivers a compassionate chronicle of three baby boomers who met as Harvard students in the 1970s as they contend with today's changing world. Rob Barrow, now a law professor at the university, gets embroiled in controversy after he's misquoted in a Harvard Crimson article about the New York Times' 1619 Project, allegedly claiming it's "irrelevant," which prompts incoming students to wonder if he'll incorporate racist perspectives into his curriculum. Rob and his wife, Julia, a historian working on a book about the baby boomers, see their lives further upturned when Rob is diagnosed with prostate cancer. A parallel narrative follows the Barrows' close friend Ray Witter, dean of Harvard's medical school. A medic during the Vietnam War, Ray remains tormented by memories of the many young soldiers who died in combat, and is concerned now by a discovery he makes of coverups at Harvard's hospital system involving fatal errors that were never disclosed to patients' families. Decades earlier, Rob and Julia lost their 11-year-old son to a fever-induced seizure at one of the Harvard-affiliated hospitals. As Ray goes above and beyond to help Rob get the best treatment and Rob fights to restore his reputation on campus, Kenney poignantly underscores the characters' resilience and the power of friendship. Readers will be moved.
