Setting Free the Kites

This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof

Copyright © 2017 Alex George

PROLOGUE

Haverford, Maine, 2015

Nathan Tilly gave me the story I'm going to tell, but it was the old paper mill that set my memories free.

I read the report in the Haverford Gazette the previous week. The mill has not been operational for more than fifty years, but now the land has been sold to a supermarket chain, and the old building is to be razed to make way for a customer parking lot. The news has prompted vigorous local debate. Some are angry that the city council has allowed part of our municipal heritage to be sold off. Others are excited at the prospect of fresh bagels. Such is progress.

For myself, I'm sorry to see the old place go. I want to pay my last respects, watch the thing go down.

The lower end of Bridge Street is lined with mud-encrusted pick-ups and vans. I have to double back and park on the other side of the river. It is a beautiful, fresh spring morning. The faintest of breezes is coming in off the ocean. As I walk across the bridge I can hear someone shouting instructions through a bullhorn.

Warning signs have been posted along the road, keeping the curious at bay. Authorized Personnel Only. Hard Hat Required. I keep my distance. A huge crane is parked in front of the old building, its arm stretched high into the sky. A wrecking ball hangs at the end of the crane's thick steel rope, fat and heavy with the threat of violence. The mill's giant wooden doors have been padlocked shut my entire life, but now they are opened wide, and early morning sunlight falls into the cathedral-like space where vast pulping machines once rumbled from dawn to dusk, the town's beating heart. Workmen in reflector vests walk in and out, murmuring into walkie-talkies. I guess they are checking all three floors for uninvited visitors before the walls start crashing down.

The mill's red brick chimney rises tall and straight into the sky. By lunchtime it will

The author of A Good American , Alex George is an Englishman who lives, works, and writes in the middle of America. He studied law at Oxford University and worked for eight years as a corporate lawyer in London and Paris before moving to the United States. He lives in Missouri with his family.

From the Hardcover edition.

"A warm, relatable-at times heartbreakingly so-story of two boys becoming men in 1970s Maine... George authentically relays the dynamic, difficult nature of families."
-Columbia Daily Tribune

"George's effortless and beautiful prose flows off of the page to construct a timeless narrative of love, loss, kinship and how the connections we make will almost always find a way to affect us for the rest of our lives."
-Oxford Citizen

"George combines wit, sorrow and nostalgia into a story readers young and old will not forget... heartbreaking and real."
-Vox Magazine

"Setting Free the Kites is a serious but breezy work, a sad but delightful story, and just right for thumbing through at the beach this summer."
-Down East Magazine

"A mesmerizing and eloquent read... This is a book that takes hold of your life, so much that you forget the individuals are fictional and assume them as characters in your everyday life... Highly, highly recommended."
-Jenn's Bookshelves

"Heart-rending... A beautifully told, nostalgic tale about friendship, George brings to life true, strongly independent characters... An effecting, emotional read. So many excellently crafted details are packed into its pages, poignantly capturing the rapid change of emotions during adolescence"
-Portland Press Herald

"A dandy book."
-St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"A moving novel of friendship, family, loss and reconcilation... an emotionally resonant novel"
-Shelf Awareness

"This generous, poignant novel addresses family, friendship, and dealing with catastrophic loss... a beautifully wrought work for fans of literary fiction and coming-of-age novels."
-Library Journal

"[A] touching story . . . George is masterly in his rendition of Maine landscapes and the emotional swings of adolescence."
- Publishers Weekly

"A lovely meditation on young friendship and the harsh realities of growing up."
-Book Riot

"It's sort of early to be carving titles into the marble 'Best of 2017'