Peter Hedges

Tim Welch is a popular history teacher at the Montague Academy, an exclusive private school in Brooklyn Heights. As he says, "I was an odd-looking, gawky kid but I like to think my rocky start forced me to develop empathy, kindness, and a tendency to be enthusiastic. All of this, I'm now convinced, helped in my quest to be worthy of Kate Oliver." Now, Kate is not inherently ordinary. But she aspires to be. She stays home with their two young sons...

“Wonderfully entertaining . . . This distinctive first novel goes down like a chocolate milkshake but boasts the sharpness and finesse of a complex wine” (Publishers Weekly).
 
Gilbert Grape is a twenty-four-year-old grocery store clerk stuck in Endora, Iowa, where the population is 1,091 and shrinking. After the suicide of Gilbert’s father, his family never fully recovered. Once the...

Dan Burns is a local newspaper advice columnist. He has three daughters and is a widower. He brings the family to his parent's house for a family gathering. When Dan goes to a local bookstore, he meets Marie. When he gets home, he finds out that Marie is actually dating his brother Mitch. Dan's mother Nana announces that she met an old acquaintance of Dan's, Ruthie Draper and that she has set up a date between Dan and Ruthie. Dan refuses to go. Mitch...

Family outcast April lives in a beat-up apartment in New York's Lower East Side with her boyfriend, Bobby. In order to spend some time with her dying mother, April invites her conservative suburban family to her place for a Thanksgiving feast. While she frantically tries to complete the meal, the family drives in from Pennsylvania sharing less-than-pleasant opinions about April's lifestyle. Her dad tries to think positively, while sister Beth flaunts...