If Ever I Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth

If Ever I Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth. 

 

Gansworth's novel is a YA novel that leaves a lasting impact. A story of friendship, 70s music, and self-realization, this novel is also about overcoming racial divides. 

 

Lewis, who has grown up on a rez, befriends another lonely teen who just arrived to the United State. Lewis and George, a military base kid, bond over choir and the Beatles. They are in the 'braniacs' section in a deeply divided school.

 

For the first time, Lewis feels as if he has a friend, particularly as George's family immediately embrace him. Others, however, are not so open-minded. 

 

Lewis learns how indifferent teachers and the school administration can be when he is hassled by one of the school's primary donors. Targeted and bullied, Lewis has no choice but to drop out of school. 

 

All hope seems to have been lost as the blizzard of 1977 with surprising force. Loyalty, friendship, and forgiveness, however, find surprising ways of pushing past the blinding snow of indifference and prejudice.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

Manhattan Beach

Manhattan Beach tackles many topics--the Brooklyn Naval Yard, racketeering, the meaning of family. 

In the "shadow" world that Dexter Styles inhabits, Styles is the top of the food chain who can indifferently make people disappear. Eddie Kerrigan is different. When given the order, Styles regretfully shoots Kerrigan.

For every gangster, though, who thinks he is at the top, there is someone else more omnipotent. 

In Dexter's case there's the mysterious Mr. Q and his sons and even someone much closer to home that can change the landscape of Dexter's world.

But this novel is not simply about gangsters. Manhattan Beach is also about the incredible sacrifices families makes for their loved ones.

Mrs. Kerrigan gives up a career she loves with the Ziegfeld Follies to raise her daughters, one of whom is severely disabled.

Eddie Kerrigan chooses to make another sacrifice; one that leaves his favorite daughter, Anna, bereft and angry. 

Anna had always been close to her father. She was his accomplice at twelve when he meets Dexter Styles at his Manhattan beach house.

That incredible meeting is forever seared in Anna's mind and will alter the course of her father's life and her own.

Despite resistance from the top brass, Anna works in the Naval Yard, choosing to dive and repair ships. 

Later, she will make an even riskier dive that will take her to the heart of the mystery of her father's disappearance.