num_pages: 244
description: With the end of summer closing in and a steamy Labor Day weekend looming in the town of Holton Mills New Hampshire thirteen-year-old Henrylonely friendless not too good at sportsspends most of his time watching television reading and daydreaming about the soft skin and budding bodies of his female classmates. For company Henry has his long-divorced mother Adelea onetime dancer whose summer project was to teach him how to foxtrot; his hamster Joe; and awkward Saturday-night outings to Friendly's with his estranged father and new stepfamily. As much as he tries Henry knows that even with his jokes and his Husband for a Day coupon he still can't make his emotionally fragile mother happy. Adele has a secret that makes it hard for her to leave their house and seems to possess an irreparably broken heart.But all that changes on the Thursday before Labor Day when a mysterious bleeding man named Frank approaches Henry and asks for a hand. Over the next five days Henry will learn some of life's most valuable lessons: how to throw a baseball the secret to perfect piecrust the breathless pain of jealousy the power of betrayal and the importance of putting othersespecially those we loveabove ourselves. And the knowledge that real love is worth waiting for.In a manner evoking Ian McEwan's Atonement and Nick Hornby's About a Boy acclaimed author Joyce Maynard weaves a beautiful poignant tale of love sex adolescence and devastating treachery as seen through the eyes of a young teenage boyand the man he later becomeslooking back at an unexpected encounter that begins one single long hot life-altering weekend.
language: English
title: Labor Day
publisher: William Morrow