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Random House
October 2007
On Sale: October 2, 2007
240 pages
ISBN: 1400064872
EAN: 9781400064878
Hardcover
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Fiction
Ever reliable and responsible, Otis Halstead is a father, a
husband (one half of a “well-dressed couple of substance”),
and the CEO of Kansas Central Fire and Casualty. He has
never done anything out of the ordinary. Until now. The change in Otis starts with an antique toy fire truck,
the exact model he had pined for at age ten but never
received. Though it is now a collectible costing $12,350, he
will buy it–because he can. Next comes a Daisy Red Ryder BB
gun, ordered from the Nostalgia Today catalog. A Kansas City
Chiefs regulation NFL helmet follows. But Otis’s real coup
is the purchase of his one true childhood passion: a red
1952 Cushman Pacemaker motor scooter. For his baffled wife,
Sally, this is the final straw. She insists that he see a
shrink–a sloppy man with flowing hair who uses terms like
“mature men in crisis” and “second childhood syndrome.” Otis
is unimpressed–and extremely insulted–by the doctor’s
insinuation that his baldness is to blame for his sudden
interest in toys. But it’s not until tragedy strikes uncomfortably close to
home that Otis decides he wants out of his sensible, safe
life in Eureka, Kansas. And so, a few weeks before his
sixtieth birthday, Otis leaves town, heading west on old
U.S. 56, a corporate CEO wearing a football helmet, riding a
forty-year-old motor scooter, and with a BB gun strapped to
the side. One might say he was in for an adventure. Otis
would say he was finally about to experience life. Jim Lehrer has created an acute, laugh-out-loud, and
endearing portrait of American middle age. With abundant wit
and a sharp sense of the lives most of us lead, Eureka takes
us on a journey through the unfulfilled dreams of childhood.
In Otis Halstead, Lehrer has created his most brilliant and
winning character to date.
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