Cloudmaker, Brooks Malcolm

From the nationally bestselling author of Painted Horses, Malcolm Brooks returns with a soaring, spirited novel set during the summer of Amelia Earharts final flight--a tale of American ingenuity and optimism set against the backdrop of a deepening Great Depression.

The summer of 1937 will be a turning point for fourteen year old Houston Huck Finn. When he and a friend find a dead body in a local creek, a rare Lindbergh flight watch on its wrist, it seems like a sign. Huck is building his own airplane, a fact he has concealed from his mother. That summer also marks the arrival of his cousin Annelise, sent to live with the family under mysterious circumstances. As it turns out, she has had flying lessons--another sign. As Hucks airplane takes shape, so does his burgeoning understanding of the world, including the battle over worldliness vs. godliness that has split Annelise from her family, and, in a quieter way, divides Hucks family too. And meanwhile, theres the matter of the watch, which it turns out the dead mans cohort of bank robbers would very much like back.

In Brooks trademark lush, breathtaking prose (San Francisco Chronicle on Painted Horses) and with a winking nod to the Sam Clemens who inspired its heros nickname, Cloudmaker is a boisterous, heartfelt novel that brings to life the idealism, inventiveness, traditionalism, and deep contradictions of the American spirit.