Description
After fleeing in Panic River four years earlier, Corey Flanagan has now changed virtually everything in his life—where he lives, how he creates art, his routines for work and play, and even his last name. The only true constants are his best friend Billy, his mother Ginny, and frequent, troubling dreams about the shootings he ran from and for which Corey was never held to account.
Now living in California, Corey passionately paints landscapes in the style of Edward Hopper, while seeing his life and his surroundings more clearly and generating award-winning art. Another life change surprises Corey as well—an unexpected romance with a younger man, Miguel. This is a relationship that will challenge Corey to finally become a person of complete honesty, both with those he loves and also with himself.
The fraught and fractured past Corey ran from four years earlier eventually catches up with him in unforeseen ways, dragging Corey back to the Midwest for a reckoning with his unresolved former life—healing his estrangement from long-time friend and once-lover Carol, settling scores with his twenty-year partner Nick, and confronting the guilt and responsibility for the accidental killing of a trucker with whom Corey had a regrettable one-night tryst.
Other unexpected discoveries and life changes revealed while he toils in the Midwest will forever affect Corey’s life as well as those he loves the most. Yet through it all, Corey’s personal journey toward healing, honesty, understanding, and love will carry him along the path of becoming a man, and to places from which he no longer needs to run.
