Cinnamon Girl

It's 1969, the summer of Woodstock. After nearly getting his head bashed in a demonstration on Milwaukee's East Side, John Meyer crashes down a hillside with fellow student Tony Russo. It looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Then John meets Tony's wife, Claire, and their young son, Jonah, and things get complicated, especially when they and another student rent a house together. Meanwhile, John is at odds with his parents and with a society that supports the war in Vietnam. Then come a national student strike and the shooting deaths of four students at Kent State. Over Claire's protests, John becomes involved in the strike in Milwaukee. Tony's brother being wounded n Vietman brings the war right into their crowded, complicated living room. Can John, Claire, Tony, and baby Jonah forge a new kind of family for a new age, or will the weight of the world pull them down?

Lawrence Kessenich of Watertown, MA Lawrence Kessenich is a fiction writer, poet, playwright, essayist, reviewer, and editor. He has published a number of short stories and won the 2010 Strokestown International Poetry Prize. He has three books of poetry: Strange News, Before Whose Glory, and Age of Wonders. He has also published essays, one of which was featured on NPR’s This I Believe, and appears in the anthology This I Believe: On Love. His short plays have been produced in New York, Boston, and Colorado, where he won the People’s Choice Award in a national drama competition. Kessenich is the co-managing editor of Ibbbetson Street literary magazine. Cinnamon Girl is his first novel.