"Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh "Shuggie" Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher's war on heavy industry has put husbands and sons out of work, and the city's notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings. Shuggie's mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie's guiding light but a burden for his artistic brother and practical sister. She dreams of...

"The New York Times bestselling author of Labor Day and After Her returns with a poignant story about the true meaning--and the true price--of friendship. Drinking cost Helen her marriage and custody of her seven-year-old son, Ollie. Once an aspiring art photographer, she now makes ends meet taking portraits of school children and working for a caterer. Recovering from her addiction, she spends lonely evenings checking out profiles on an online dating...

"TJ Devlin is the charming disappointment in the prominent Devlin family, all of whom are lawyers at their highly successful firm-except him. After a stint in prison and rehab for alcoholism, TJ can't get hired anywhere except at the firm, in a make-work job with the title of investigator. But one night, TJ's world turns upside down after his older brother John confesses that he just murdered one of the clients, an accountant he'd confronted with...

As he tries to come to terms with his mother's death, Vernon finds solace in his growing relationship with the neighborhood outcasts, an alcoholic and her retarded son.

In Sam, The Hot Dog Man, Carol Duracka's fictional character, Lynn, questions in tearful frustration, "God, why did you give me the wrong father" Shy and perceptive, Lynn finds it nearly impossible to understand her alcoholic, argumentative father Sam, the famous hot dog man of Chicago's Back of the Yards neighborhood. Narrated by each member of her family, the story moves with frankness and amusing color, but it is only when Lynn surrenders her painful...

"It's 1970. Lieutenant Bill Mann, the orphaned son of a Tuskegee Airman, is sober, single, and focused when he reports to USAF Pilot Training; he's there to begin living his boyhood dream. According to Mann's 'personal flight plan' he's fifteen months away from playing a significant role in the air war over Viet Nam, an assignment he'll use to establish his reputation as a fighter pilot. May of 1972 finds Mann in Bangkok, passed out on the floor of...