DiveEleven-year-old Ben and his older stepbrother Dustin have never been close. In fact, they could not be more different. Ben's always had an easy relationship with Dustin's dad, Lyle; Dustin prefers to hold himself sullenly "outside touching distance." Ben feels safe with Lyle's simple household rules and the comfortable predictability of daily life. Dustin chafes against it, counting the days until he can get his driver's license and get away. So when first Ben's restless mother, then Dustin, decide to leave the only place he has ever called home, Ben refuses to follow. Now Dustin has been in a diving accident, and Ben and Lyle must go to him. For Ben, the journey brings the chance to face his long-absent mother, and to confront Dustin, an elusive figure he has alternately worshiped and resented, whose soul is more troubled than Ben can understand. In a first-person narrative addressed to his stepbrother, this is the story of Ben's struggle to decide for himself the meaning of family and home, and to understand the loss of the people he loves. It is also the story of the difficult choices and complicated relationships that make up all families. |
