Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2011
368 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
It's 1967. Jack Witcher is a twelve-year-old boy genius living in a Virginia suburb at an address the entire neighborhood avoids. Jack's father has lost his job - again - and he's starting fights with other fathers. Jack's mother, sweet but painfully ugly, works as a cashier at a local market. Jack's older brother is a long-haired, pot-smoking hippie.
If all of that isn't bad enough, Jack's brother suddenly becomes the main suspect in the disappearance of the town's golden boy. And to make matters even worse, Jack is in love with the missing boy's sister, Myra. Mr. Gladstein, the town jeweler and solitary Jew, is Jack's only friend; together, they scheme to win Jack Myra's love. But to do that, Jack must overcome the prejudices, both the town's and his own, about himself and his family.
"Starred Review. At turns unsparing, tender, and disturbing when it comes to rivalry and the nuances of love versus obligation, this is no typical bildungsroman.... intelligently, wonderfully conceived." - Publishers Weekly
"If Jack's in Love is a moving portrait of a specific time, family and town, but also a universal story of growing up and coming to terms with the people - and places - that raise us, told with all the humor, truth and urgency of its teenage hero." - Book Page
"In the vein of To Kill a Mockingbird, but about class rather than race, and lacking a bit of its righteous moral clarity." - Kirkus Reviews
"Jack is a character that any one of us would want to take in as our own. The plot held my interest and was written in a believable manner. Keep an eye on Stephen Wetta; he is sure to be a successful novelist." - Library Thing
This information about If Jack's in Love was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
A high school dropout, Stephen Wetta grew up in the '60s and '70s, drank, used drugs, got into financial trouble, and spent far too much time reading and writing. He knocked around for years at different jobs, didn't like any of them, and got sober without wanting to. Somehow he wound up with a Ph.D. and worked for ten years as an adjunct. His academic career was singularly undistinguished, and he was eventually hired full-time by a school that couldn't get rid of him. Shortly afterward he was jailed for tax evasion. If Jack's in Love is his first novel. Visit him online at www.stephenwetta.com.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
