Surfaces of a diamond

This delightfully subtle second novel about Omar Kohn of Charleston, South Carolina, recalls his fifteenth summer (in the late 1930s), marked by playing baseball, writing for a newspaper, reading about the Civil War, daydreaming, and going on his first date. Underneath such ordinary events, enormous personal changes happen to Omar. He learns about his parents{u2019} frailties and their very different family backgrounds as he sorts through questions about his own identity and destiny.