Smart Boys

Smart Boys Swimming in the River Styx is an ode to the joys of youth, the joys that make life precious at any time, but especially in time of war. The novel's characters spring out from the pages, living one hour at a time, opening their hearts to each other, falling in love.In the summer of 1950, with the Korean War looming, they cared about women, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Whiz Kids, escaping Pennsylvania's coal mines, hunting rabbits, catching largemouths so big they almost broke their fishing rods, wanting to live forever, and believing they would.The story plunges you into their lives that summer, and into the lives of the women they met and loved. This first new railroad romance in a generation celebrates that sweet, youthful, evanescent moment, exactly in the middle of the last century, that we now look back upon as a time of innocence. A woman's love, a brother's hand, a father's faith, this is a story that will make you laugh and cry, and remember how it was.