Do you equate verbal skills with intelligence?
The question becomes a plot point in Angie Kim’s new novel, Happiness Falls, in which a young man on the autism spectrum rushes home from a hike with his father unable to explain why his father isn't with him.
Fifteen-year-old Eugene Parkson exhibits signs of Angelman syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes developmental problems with speech and balance, intellectual disabilities, seizures, and unusual smiling and laughing. While Eugene’s enigmatic behavior is cause for concern and resentment from his siblings, their father wonders whether Eugene’s energetic jumping and carefree facial expressions indicate genuine happiness or are simply symptoms of his condition.
The lives of seven strangers intersect on the most intense night of their lives in The Time Has Come, the latest novel by Georgia author Will Leitch.
The story revolves around a family-operated pharmacy that casts a long shadow over residents of America's quintessential college town, Athens, Georgia.
With the passing of the family patriarch, Theo Lindbergh becomes the reluctant public face of Lindbergh Pharmacy. At the same time, a retired school teacher with a long-standing grudge against the Lindbergh family plots a reckoning she feels is long overdue.
When Miss Lamm (a compassionate teacher known to her students on her better days as Mommy Mario) confronts Theo at the drugstore, a mixed group of customers become the victims, witnesses, and first responders at a shooting. The Time Has Come chronicles the events that bring each one of them—a widow, a nurse, a musician, a lawyer, a contractor, and his son—to Lindbergh Pharmacy. As fans of Leitch's 2021 novel How Lucky already know, the author has a genuine gift for crafting relatable characters.
The Time Has Come perfectly captures the range of attitudes in small town America as individuals from all walks of life re-emerge from pandemic isolation and tensions flare. Fans of novels like Frederick Backman’s Anxious People and Before the Fall by Noah Hawley will appreciate this dramatic character-rich story.
How Lucky was an Edgar Award Nominee for Best Novel in 2022 and won the Alex Award in 2022 which honors novels written for adults that have special appeal for young adults.
