Home After Dark

Book excerpt: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the acclaimed memoir Stitches comes a stunning story of one boy's heartbreaking coming of age in 1950s America. After his mother abandons the family, thirteen-year-old Russell Pruitt moves with his Korean War veteran father to a small town in southern California. Eager to fit in and figure out the mystifying rules of being a man, he succumbs to the sway of boys more feral than himself--leading to an act of betrayal that will have devastating consequences. Told through cinematic artwork that will transfix readers with its visceral potency and grace, Home After Dark is a mesmerizing evocation of a boy's struggle to survive the everyday brutalities of adolescence, and forge his own path to manhood.