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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 βwell-dressed couple of substanceβ), 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 itβbecause 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 Otisβs 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 shrinkβa sloppy man with flowing hair who uses terms like βmature men in crisisβ and βsecond childhood syndrome.β Otis is unimpressedβand extremely insultedβby the doctorβs insinuation that his baldness is to blame for his sudden interest in toys. But itβs 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.
 Media BuzzCharlie Rose - October 24, 2007
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