Gone the Sun

Book excerpt: For the sixteen year olds attending Camp Kanuga in the summer of 1975, it is supposed to the best summer of their young lives. They are finally upper seniors at the camp, and they are going to make the best of it. But without warning, tragedy strikes, and its effects will haunt five campers for the rest of their lives. There is Gavin Stewart, a twin who lives in his brothers shadow. Theres Andrew Apple Brookman, the jokester whose life is changed by loss. Theres Henry Sturtz, the rich boy whose words can be deadly. Theres Leonard Pulitzer Dorff, the poor boy sent to spend a summer in a world he can only dream about. And theres Nicki Polis, the girlfriend of the golden boy who is privy to a secret that will change all of them. Gone the Sun traces the lives of these individuals over the course of thirty-five years, finally bringing them together again in a meeting where truth and illusion must be separated and secrets and lies exposed. Its a story about a bunch of kids who thought they knew it all at sixteen and how that hubris changed the course of their lives.