The Duration
A Novel
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
"Fromm's haunting tale of adults testing the bonds of youthful friendships is full of hard-won wit and unexpected humor." --Jim Ruland, author of Forest of Fortune
It's been 100 years since tragedy struck the rolling woods around Fleur-de-Lys, one of dozens of Gilded Age estates dotting the western Massachusetts town of Gable. In Gable, they both begrudge and venerate their past, and even now that health spas and corporate yoga retreats have replaced the mansions of a bygone era, the ghosts of yesteryear linger. Growing up there means navigating those ghosts, and the even more pernicious pitfalls of adolescence, until you're lucky enough to find your footing. Unless you're not.
In The Duration, Boston attorney Pete Johansson finds himself reuniting in Gable with his troubled childhood pal Chickie, who has returned to the wintry town of their youth determined to solve past mysteries and right the wrongs he can't seem to shake. Despite--or because of--his best intentions, Pete is drawn reluctantly into Chick's reckless orbit, straining a bedrock friendship and putting them both at risk.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Inspired by an old Berkshire County unsolved mystery, Fromm's fiction debut blends a zany adventure with a low-key exploration of nostalgia. Pete Johansson, a newly single Boston lawyer in his late 20s, returns to the western Massachusetts town of Gable, where he grew up, at the request of his childhood druggie pal, Philip "Chickie" Benecik. Chickie continues to be obsessed with acquiring the rhino horn that he's sure is on the property of Fleur-de-Lys, an estate on which he and Pete did an extensive report at the request of a teacher and the police chief as penance for being caught trespassing there years before. Their friend "Jimmer" O'Neill, now a venture capitalist, gets Pete into Head-Connect, the high-end spa that has taken over the property, and Pete must decide whether to tamp or fuel Chickie's wildness. Fromm (Expatriate Games: My Season of Misadventure in Czech Semi-pro Basketball) depicts a sad tenderness between men with common histories, afraid to grow, and trapped into thinking their best moments are in the past.
