Summer of the Black Chevy

Paul Morrison launches his first teenage summer at a school dance, longing for girls and the smack of baseballs at the city park. His innocence ends quickly that very night when a roaring black Chevy chases him into the dark, but it’s the mysterious stranger driving it who scares him more.


It’s 1965 in Deer Lodge, Montana, a mountain town far from the busy faraway world that Paul and his girlfriend Marcy read about in books. Much closer to Deer Lodge are Butte and Anaconda, two tougher cities, and the stranger who charges into Paul’s life knows them both.


Several tragic encounters unfold as the summer stretches on. Paul and his friends Blue and Max each experience hurt and loss, but it’s Paul who learns how tragedy knows no boundaries.


Paul’s new friend Louie, an older boy, is different from anyone he’s ever met. Louie has a dark secret. Paul doesn’t know that, at least at first. He sees Louie’s rough character and fears his wild behavior. Only later will Paul, a thirteen-year-old boy, come to understand that really knowing Louie means discovering the part of him that’s not readily seen.


Paul’s family lives in an old farmhouse but they don’t farm. His father Frank owns a lumberyard, and after a day of selling boards, Frank drifts into the barn behind the old farmhouse to work on motors and count coins he keeps in coffee cans. Paul’s mother Martha, her years as the high school prom queen all but forgotten, manages the household and keeps the family’s reputation intact around town. Paul’s only sibling, Sally, knows more about his young teenage life than he suspects.


Like any young boy, Paul has heroes, among them Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva of the Minnesota Twins. He also finds meaning in his favorite novel, a story about a Kentucky boy caught between two loving families in the Civil War. In "The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come," the protagonist Chad represents what Paul knows of his new friend Louie. That’s when Paul begins to see beyond the intrigue of his teenage innocence to the deeper conflicts and painful losses that adults experience. The road Paul travels with the omnipresent black Chevy leads to unforeseen consequences with family and friends.


In "Summer of the Black Chevy," author Kevin S. Giles reflects on fleeting youth and circumstances that can alter a boy’s life in a heartbeat. He paints an image of a small town that can’t contain a young boy’s wonder — or his regret and guilt. Deer Lodge has a Main Street, and a library, and it has Toby, the man revered as the best basketball player the town ever produced. There’s also Faye, the beckoning freckled girl from Anaconda, and Hack Face O’Hanlon, the liquor-induced sawmill operator.


The reader goes on a journey with Paul Morrison, traveling into the heart of his confusion as the rebel Louie leads him even further into an exploration of life and death.