Description
Book SynopsisSet in Alaska in 1965, a coming-of-age story of loss, adventure, violence, and redemption
Fourteen-year-old Sam Barger’s life changes forever when his father dies and his family is forced to move from a remote homestead and fishing camp to the busy city of Anchorage. Life in the big city hits Sam a little differently; suddenly he’s surrounded by cars and girls, poverty and diversity, and new places to explore. One day he and his new friends stumble upon an abandoned nightclub, and it fires up Sam’s imagination and leads him into dangers he never expected. Can he survive the wilds of Anchorage before the end of summer?
Secondhand Summer is the gripping debut novel inspired by author Dan Walker’s own life and experiences.
Trade Review"When his father dies suddenly, an adolescent boy faces more than one kind of loss as he navigates the perilous path between childhood and maturity in a new city in Walker’s debut novel. . . . Walker’s first-person narrative is engaging and vivid as he describes Sam’s earnest progress toward discovering who he is. The author skillfully evokes the world of adolescent boys, full of gross-out jokes, territorial challenges, and a few true friends. . . . [SECONDHAND SUMMER] is absorbing as it describes the painfully awkward moment before kids become 'teenagers with cars and adults with power.' As it follows Sam through the changes and choices, the plot builds to an exciting conclusion that includes violence, redemption, and the first faltering steps toward a new life. A picaresque coming-of-age tale." --Kirkus
". . . A debut novel by Dan L. Walker, a lifelong Alaskan and former schoolteacher who lives near Seward. Set in 1965 and loosely based on Walker's own experiences, it tells of Sam Barger, a 14-year-old from Ninilchik whose fisherman and homesteading father dies, prompting his mother to move the family to Anchorage.
While innumerable Alaska novels — for kids and adults — follow characters from the city into the wilds, 'Secondhand Summer' goes the reverse direction. Sam finds himself torn from a remote cabin overlooking Kachemak Bay and in a low-rent apartment on Government Hill. Unaccustomed to the city and largely unsupervised as his mother works long hours, he heads for the streets to figure out life on his own.
Sam falls in with some rough kids including Taylor, a bully and instigator, and Macek, a would-be tough guy with an inferiority complex that has him ping-ponging between lashing out at others and getting pushed around. Sam also meets Billy, a mostly good kid with a penchant for mischief, whose mother has left him in the care of his grandmother while his father is in Vietnam. The four boys start pushing their boundaries and, as the summer progresses, find their way into serious trouble.
Walker has written this in the first person and Sam's voice reminded me at times of the narrators in S.E. Hinton's classic stories of troubled adolescents such as 'The Outsiders' and 'Rumble Fish.' While the gang activity Hinton focuses on is absent here, the sympathy for the struggles of kids on the wrong side of the tracks is similar. This well-plotted and believable story for teens will also appeal to adults and is one of the best novels I've read all year, northern-themed or otherwise." --David James, Alaska Dispatch News
