Fourmile

Twelve-year-old Foster is bereft without his father, killed in a recent accident in the woods. His family’s two-hundred-acre farm, Fourmile, “was something I was molded around, all I knew, the best of him and me and Mother.” Now, without his father, everything seems “still and quiet and lifeless,” and things get worse when his mother’s new boyfriend, Dax, shows up drunk and mean. But then a mysterious stranger comes into their lives and changes everything. He becomes a father figure for Foster, and together they fix the barn roof, paint the fence, get the old tractor going, and mow the fields. Gary even shows Foster how to shoot a pistol. But Dax is jealous of Gary and the increasing attention he seems to be getting from Linda, Foster’s mother. A gun-toting stranger, a jealous boyfriend, a woman caught in the middle, and the likelihood of violence -- it all sounds like something out of the Wild West, but this novel is set in modern-day rural Alabama. Though Gary makes Foster’s life “fresh and adventurous,” danger is afoot, and Foster will do a lot of growing up in a short time. Key masterfully plots the story of home, family, and fate, and readers will race to the conclusion, sensing the trouble to come between Dax and Gary; throughout, it’s the uncertainty surrounding Gary’s identity and past that will keep readers intrigued. An original and satisfying coming-of-age tale. dean schneider