The Family Hightower

The Family Hightower
Author: Brian Francis Slattery
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2014-09-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 160980564X

*** Named a Kirkus Reviews Starred Title in Their 10/01/14 Issue *** In 1968 two boys are born into a large family, both named for their grandfather, Peter Henry Hightower. One boy—Peter—grows up in Africa and ends up a journalist in Granada. The other—Petey—becomes a minor criminal, first in Cleveland and then in Kiev. In 1995, Petey runs afoul of his associates and disappears. But the criminals, bent on revenge, track down the wrong cousin, and the Peter in Granada finds himself on the run. He bounces from one family member to the next, piecing together his cousin's involvement in international crime while learning the truth about his family's complicated history. Along the way the original Peter Henry Hightower's story is revealed, until it catches up with that of his children, revealing how Peter and Petey have been living in their grandfather's shadow all along. The novel takes a look at capitalism and organized crime in the 20th century, the legend of the self-made man, and what money can do to people. Like Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, The Family Hightower stretches across both generations and continents, bearing the weight of family secrets and the inevitable personal toll they take on loved ones despite our best intentions.

Water

Water
Author: Bapsi Sidhwa
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2013-07-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1571319166

An eight-year-old is sent to live in a community of widows in India, and finds a new purpose there, in a novel by “a writer of enormous talent” (Newsday). Set in 1938, against the backdrop of Gandhi’s rise to power, Water follows the life of eight-year-old Chuyia, abandoned at a widow’s ashram after the death of her elderly husband. There, she must live in penitence until her death. Unwilling to accept her fate, she becomes a catalyst for change in the widows’ lives. When her friend Kalyani, a beautiful widow-prostitute, falls in love with a young, upper-class Gandhian idealist, the forbidden affair boldly defies Hindu tradition and threatens to undermine the ashram’s delicate balance of power. This riveting look at the lives of widows in colonial India is ultimately a haunting and lyrical story of love, faith, and redemption. “Sidhwa’s humor and compassion glow in Water.” —Houston Chronicle “A deeply moving story, elegantly told, with all the assurance of a master.” —M.G. Vassanji, author of The In-Between World of Vikram Lall

Even in Darkness

Even in Darkness
Author: Lynn Hightower
Publisher: Severn House/ORIM
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2014-04-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1780104960

Joy Miller, once a famed TV evangelist, retired years before when two tragedies struck her family: the first leading her husband to suicide; the second leaving her son dead and his wife and daughter estranged from her. She now lives a lonely, reclusive life, until a package arrives in the mail containing graphic photographs of three people she knew long ago - all brutally murdered. When Joy reads the note in the package, she knows immediately who it's from: a ghost from her past, a dangerous individual who knows far too much about the skeletons in Joy's closet. Then people start disappearing ...

High Water

High Water
Author: Lynn Hightower
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2003
Genre: Beaufort (S.C.)
ISBN: 0743466241

As affecting as it is suspenseful, "High Water" infuses a harrowing mystery with an intensely personal study of the delicate, complex bonds that define a family.