Abstract
After a backyard boxing match results in the death of his older brother, Billy Salmonet impulsively hops a train out of town, bearing the blame for a murder he did not commit and leaving behind a web of secrets, rumor and conjecture. Miles from home, he constructs a new identity as a civil engineer in Ohio only to be discovered years later by Effie Cheever, a young girl from his hometown and the only one who knows his true identity. Effie’s compassion for the man she supposes to be a murderer, her wild fantasies, and her desire to forgive spiral her into a hasty romance with secrets at its core. This novel considers the narratives we compose for those we love, the choices that come to define us, and the necessary fractures when the real meets the imagined.