American Boy: A Novel
About this ebook
Willow Falls, Minnesota, 1962. The shooting of a young woman on Thanksgiving Day sets off a chain of unsettling events in the life of seventeen-year-old Matthew Garth. A close friend of the prosperous Dunbar family, Matthew is present in Dr. Dunbar's home office when the victim is brought in. The sight of Louisa Lindahl—beautiful and mortally wounded—makes an indelible impression on the young man.
Fueled by his feverish desire for this mysterious woman and a deep longing for the comfort and affluence that appears to surround the Dunbars, Matthew finds himself drawn into a vortex of greed, manipulation, and ultimately betrayal. Larry Watson's tale heart-breaking tale "resonates with language as clear and images as crisp as the spare, flat prairie of its Minnesota setting" ( Kirkus Reviews).
An Esquire Best Book of 2011
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About the author
Larry Watson grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota, and received his BA and MA from the University of North Dakota and his PhD in creative writing at the University of Utah. He has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Wisconsin Arts Board. He is the author of ten novels, including Let Him Go, Montana 1948, and American Boy. Watson's fiction has been published in many foreign editions and has received multiple prizes and awards. He has published short stories and poems in a range of journals. His essays and book reviews have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Sun-Times, and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Watson teaches at Marquette University and lives with his wife in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
