Excerpt from All That Is Solid Melts into Air by Darragh McKeon, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Two kids from school, a couple of years older than him. Ivan Egorov and his friend Aleksandr. Everyone calls him Lazy Alek, he has a lazy eye. There are a thousand jokes about Alek. Why was Alek late for school? His eye wouldn't get out of bed. Alek gets this all the time, but not when Ivan is around. Nobody messes with Ivan.

Alek speaks to Ivan. "My mother says why can't you be like that other boy, play an instrument, like that Tchaikovsky boy. That's what she calls him, 'the Tchaikovsky boy.' "

"Tchaikovsky. I know that name. Tell me again how I know that name."

"The ballet. Swan Lake."

"That's right, Swan Lake. There's another one, though, what's the other one?"

They're having the conversation for him but not to him, like Yevgeni just happened to sidle along as they were talking. Yevgeni thinks about running, it might be the best way out. But he isn't afraid to fight. These kids could kick the hell out of him, no question, but he'll stand and fight. He just wishes they'd get on with it. People wandering by, no idea of Yevgeni's situation. No way he can ask for help, that would mean an extended beating; other kids would hear about it and join the fun. Not here, but later. Nothing is more certain.

"What other one?"

"The other one."

"I can't remember."

"Hey, Tchaikovsky, what's the other one you're famous for?"

A sigh. Here we go.

"The Nutcracker."

Ivan fakes a punch to the groin and Yevgeni flinches. Basic mistake.

"I hear you have two mothers. You need a lot of looking after or what? You get a scrape, one blows, one kisses, this is what I hear."

"One blows? I hear they both blow."

Alek always has his head tilted to the side, compensating for the eye. It makes him look like a chicken. Flipping his head from one side to the other. Yevgeni wants to slap it back to straight.

"Show us your hands, maestro." Ivan says this. Ivan once beat a boy four classes ahead of them, no small fry either, a full fight, caught him hard on the windpipe, even the teachers watched it.

Yevgeni clasps his hands against his back and Alek slinks behind, digs into Yevgeni's wrist, separating the hands, displaying one of them to Ivan. They have to be careful how they handle this: maximum pain, minimum attention.

Ivan grabs the fourth finger of the right hand, cranking it slowly back towards the elbow.

"I hear he wears a bow tie. You hear this?"

"I hear this."

He moves left, steps tight to one of the arches, using Yevgeni's body to shield the action. Yevgeni is forced to perform an incremental twist, elbow following shoulder—an agonized version of the twirl he sees his mother do when she dances, the few times he's seen her dance—until he rounds to face Ivan.

The older boy changes his grip, considers the punishment. Breakage is not out of the question. Yevgeni knows this, Ivan knows this. Testing the flexibility of the joint. Testing the will of Yevgeni.

"So where's your papa when your two mamas are home?"

"He died in Afghanistan."

A pause. Ivan looks at him, sees him for the first time.

"My father went to Afghanistan."

A stabbing note of woe in Ivan's voice. A glance towards somewhere distant.

Yevgeni may be okay.

It's just the two of them now. Their joined experience, a father in a war zone, separating them from everything else. Ivan holds the younger kid's finger. Holding it in his fist. An odd point of contact, he realizes, looking at it, holding the finger in a baby's grasp.

The Tchaikovsky kid is staring at him, really looking now, like he's trying to discover something. Like he wants Ivan to repeat what he said. Ivan can feel the tension releasing in the kid's hand. There is the possibility of letting him go. There is definitely that possibility. But Alek's here. And word would spread.

Excerpted from All That Is Solid Melts into Air by Darragh McKeon. Copyright © 2014 by Darragh McKeon. Excerpted by permission of Harper Perennial. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.