I was fortunate to receive an advance review copy of The Summer of Shooting Stars by Kevin Prufer. This story follows fourteen-year-old Hustle through a summer of changes and uncertainty in 1989.
The story opens with Hustle and his older brother Tommy looking up at night sky as music from a popular band of the late eighties plays in the distance. I loved this opening, especially knowing that the band had played at Cleveland's Blossom Music Center in 1989, the year in which the story takes place. It's a nice touch, as are the references to the mall and other familiar details that help establish the time and place.
The next scene introduces Hustle's best friend, Dmitri, and brings an unexpected moment of sadness into the story. It is an early reminder that this summer will hold both good and difficult moments for young Hustle.
Hustle looks up to Tommy and enjoys spending time with Dmitri, especially when they hammer fossil trilobites together. But when Tommy goes missing and a strange man with red hair shows up at their house, Hustle begins to realize that life doesn't always turn out the way he hopes.
I loved Hustle's fossil-hunting and record-store work. I couldn't help imagining it as something along the lines of the shop in the book /movie High Fidelity. And there is an interesting thread involving Hustle's German immigrant father, who builds a birdhouse to replicate the home he lost during the war. It brings memory, loss, and the meaning of home into the story.
Prufer's prose is pensive, and with a spectacular meteor shower and questionable neighbors providing the backdrop, Prufer brings together family, friendship, growing pains, and the unexpected turns life can take. What begins with two brothers making a wish beneath the stars becomes a story about the things we hope for, the things we cannot control, and the experiences that shape us along the way.
I received a copy of this advance review copy from Emily Kwilinski, Managing Editor at Slant Books
