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November 2002
On Sale: October 29, 2002
Featuring: Homer Hickam
432 pages ISBN: 0440240921 EAN: 9780440240921 Mass Market Paperback
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Non-Fiction Memoir
Homer Hickam won the praise of critics and the devotion of readers with his first two memoirs set in the hardscrabble mining town of Coalwood, West Virginia. The New York Times crowned his first book, the #1 national bestseller October Sky, βan eloquent evocation ... a thoroughly charming memoir.β And People called The Coalwood Way, Hickamβs follow-up to October Sky, βa heartwarmer ... truly beautiful and haunting.β Now Homer Hickam continues his extraordinary story with Sky of Stone, dazzling us with exquisite storytelling as he takes us back to that remarkable small town we first came to know and love in October Sky.In the summer of β61, Homer βSonnyβ Hickam, a year of college behind him, was dreaming of sandy beaches and rocket ships. But before Sonny could reach the seaside fixer-upper where his mother was spending the summer, a telephone call sends him back to the place he thought he had escaped, the gritty coal-mining town of Coalwood, West Virginia. There, Sonnyβs father, the mineβs superintendent, has been accused of negligence in a manβs deathβand the townspeople are in conflict over the future of the town.Sonnyβs mother, Elsie, has commanded her son to spend the summer in Coalwood to support his father. But within hours, Sonny realizes two things: His father, always cool and distant with his second son, doesnβt want him there ... and his parentsβ marriage has begun to unravel. For Sonny, so begins a summer of discoveryβof love, betrayal, and most of all, of a brooding mystery that threatens to destroy his father and his town. Cut off from his college funds by his father, Sonny finds himself doing the unimaginable: taking a job as a βtrack-laying man,β the toughest in the mine. Moving out to live among the miners, Sonny is soon dazzled by a beautiful older woman who wants to be the mineβs first female engineer. And as the days of summer grow shorter, Sonny finds himself changing in surprising ways, taking the first real steps toward adulthood. But itβs a journey he can make only by peering into the mysterious heart of Coalwood itself, and most of all, by unraveling the story of a manβs death and a fatherβs secret.In Sky of Stone, Homer Hickam looks down the corridors of his past with love, humor, and forgiveness, brilliantly evoking a close-knit community where everyone knows everything about each otherβs livesβexcept the things that matter most. Sky of Stone is a memoir that reads like a novel, mesmerizing us with rich language, narrative drive, and sheer storytelling genius.
 Media BuzzToday - April 10, 2010
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