The Stove-Junker
In the winter of 2012, 79-year-old Somerset Garden travels back to his ancestral home in idyllic Drums, Pennsylvania, to renovate his dilapidated house. Burdened by the loss of his beloved wife, angry at God and at himself, Somerset hopes to reach a final understanding of the meaning of his life. While a blizzard barrels down from the north and "Armageddon" draws closer, Somerset discovers an unnamed boy squatting on the property, a strange boy who forces him to confront his past. Unearthing objects in the house, Somerset remembers his father's cruelty and the accident that cost him his brother's life; his youth's itinerant wandering, tethered to his mother after a fire that blazed the woods; his artistic wife and their rebellious son--all of whom are caught in the grip of Luzerne County's ancient history of violence. Part elegy, part history, part existential ghost tale, The Stove Junker is a harrowing, lyrical meditation on loss, heartbreak, and the power of memory.www.skkalsi.com