The Boys

Front Cover
Spiegel and Grau, 2022 - Fiction - 256 pages

"Hafner's taut and utterly delightful debut is a novel of multitudes. . . . What a wonder of storytelling."--Weike Wang, New York Times

New York Times Editor's Choice * Good Morning America Reading Pick * LitHub Most Anticipated Book * Christian Science Monitor Summer Reading Pick

A delicious summer read filled with humor and surprise for readers of Anne Tyler and Kevin Wilson.

When introverted Ethan Fawcett marries fun-loving Barb, so comfortable in the world, he has every reason to believe he will be delivered from a lifetime of solitude. She fills his world with a sense of adventure, expanding his horizons beyond his comfortable routine. To ease Ethan's fears of becoming a father, Barb suggests they foster two young brothers, Tommy and Sam, and Ethan immediately falls in love with the boys.

When the pandemic hits, he becomes obsessed with providing a perfect life for them. But instead of bringing Barb and Ethan closer together, the boys become a wedge in their relationship, as Ethan is unable to share with Barb a secret that has been haunting him since childhood. Then Ethan takes Tommy and Sam on a biking trip in Italy, and it becomes clear just how unusual Ethan and his boys are.

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About the author (2022)

Katie Hafner has been writing about technology since 1983. She was the news editor of Data Communications Magazine, a reporter for the San Diego Union, a technology correspondent for Business Week and a contributing editor at Newsweek, covering technology and computers. In addition, she has contributed articles to journals such as Wired, The New Republic, Esquire and Working Woman. Hafner is co-author of Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier (1991, with John Markoff), and Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet (1996, with husband Matthew Lyon). In 1995, she wrote The House at the Bridge: A Story of Modern Germany, which grew out of an interest she developed in college while studying with novelist and playwright Rheinhard Lettau.

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