Kissing the Roadkill Back to Life

<p>In this moving sophisticated and often humorous novel Gary M. Almeter artfully crafts a group portrait of several families using the finest of details in seemingly mundane encounters and everyday events. </p><p><br></p><p>It's 1982 and Gloria Winegar a Brown University librarian discovers that there aren't many drawbacks to having an affair with JFK Jr. a Brown senior. When she learns she's pregnant with his baby she tells no one but her best friend who shepherds through childbirth. They leave the baby a son on the steps of a convent. The novel chronicles the next few decades of both Gloria and her son who gets adopted by the most normal family in Massachusetts. How he learns who he is; how he discovers his mother; and what they each should or must do with their new knowledge is masterfully and beautifully written in a story that is a little bit espionage novel; a little bit bildungsroman; and a little bit historical fiction; all culminating in a beautiful literary sketch of a family. The book imagines the pre-public life of JFK Jr. and examines how much we know about him and people in general is illusory.  </p><p><br></p><p>It is the story of identity pedigree blue collar versus Ivy League sensibilities celebrity authenticity family and self-care. It's about how small things evolve into big things. It is a novel about nature versus nurture. It is a modern telling story of Arthurian legend and the mythic doomed (and triumphant) heroes who populate our world.  </p>