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Simon and Schuster
May 2011
On Sale: May 3, 2011
Featuring: Gabriel Witter; Cullen Witter
198 pages
ISBN: 1442413336
EAN: 9781442413337
Hardcover
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Young Adult
Just when seventeen-year-old Cullen Witter thinks he
understands everything about his small and painfully dull
Arkansas town, it all disappears. . . . In the summer
before Cullen's senior year, a nominally-depressed
birdwatcher named John Barling thinks he spots a species of
woodpecker thought to be extinct since the 1940s in Lily,
Arkansas. His rediscovery of the so-called Lazarus
Woodpecker sparks a flurry of press and woodpecker-mania.
Soon all the kids are getting woodpecker haircuts and
everyone's eating "Lazarus burgers." But as absurd as the
town's carnival atmosphere has become, nothing is more
startling than the realization that Cullen’s sensitive,
gifted fifteen-year-old brother Gabriel has suddenly and
inexplicably disappeared. While Cullen navigates his way
through a summer of finding and losing love, holding his
fragile family together, and muddling his way into
adulthood, a young missionary in Africa, who has lost his
faith, is searching for any semblance of meaning wherever
he can find it. As distant as the two stories seem at the
start, they are thoughtfully woven ever closer together and
through masterful plotting, brought face to face in a
surprising and harrowing climax. Complex but truly
extraordinary, tinged with melancholy and regret, comedy
and absurdity, this novel finds wonder in the ordinary and
emerges as ultimately hopeful. It's about a lot more than
what Cullen calls, “that damn bird.” It’s about the dream
of second chances.
Comments
1 comment posted.
Re: Where Things Come Back
This debut young adult novel takes a look at family dynamics and dysfunction through the eyes of an angst-filled teenager. The story twists and winds around through some rather adult situations, but the ending is a satisfying conclusion to a complicated tale.
(Sharon Galligar Chance 12:23pm December 1, 2011)
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