Toole's lunatic and sage novel introduces one of the most memorable characters in American literature, Ignatius Reilly, whom Walker Percy dubs "slob extraordinaire, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one." Set in New Orleans, A Confederacy of Dunces outswifts Swift, one of whose essays gives the book its title. As its characters burst into life, they leave the region and literature forever changed by their...

"An epic novel about a son, the mother who left him as a child, and how his search to uncover the secrets of her life leads him to reclaim his own"--

Mary Beth Latham is first and foremost a mother, whose three teenaged children come first, before her career as a landscape gardener, or even her life as the wife of a doctor. Caring for her family and preserving their everyday life is paramount. And so, when one of her sons, Max, becomes depressed, Mary Beth becomes focused on him, and is blindsided by a shocking act of violence. What happens afterwards is a testament to the power of a woman's love...

For eighteen years, Fran Benedetto kept her secret. And hid her bruises. And stayed with Bobby because she wanted her son to have a father. And because, in spite of everything, she loved him. Then one night, when she saw the look on her ten-year-old son's face, Fran finally made a choice -- and ran for both their lives... --- [Excerpt from back cover.]

In an inspirational debut novel by the author of Tuesdays with Morrie, Charles "Chick" Benetto, grieving over the death of his mother, uses alcohol as a crutch to deal with his loneliness, isolation, and depression and the disintegration of his life, until an encounter with his mother's ghost brings him new awareness and leads him to attempt to put his life back together.

After discovering the disappearance of several household items, Marcus, a thirteen-year-old latchkey child, suspects that a stranger may be prowling around inside his house while he's at school and his mother is at work.

When Keith Rosen runs away from his Florida home taking along a motherless baby, his divorced mother is perplexed and terrified. She sets out on her own journey to find him, and the resulting events change both of their lives in ways both simple and extraordindary.

Christine Scavello's life turns into a nightmare when her son becomes a target for a group of religious fanatics who claim that the boy is the Antichrist and will stop at nothing in their efforts to kill him.

Ten-year-old Bobby Smith, son of the local pharmacist and the host of the radio show "Neighbor Dorothy," grows to manhood in Elmwood, Missouri, observing the people and the changes that affect the small town in the decades after the end of World War II.

While accompanying her husband to New York where he is to have a life-saving operation, Catherine Dornan takes her two sons to see some of the city's Christmas sights. When a woman finds and takes her wallet, the younger boy follows the woman into the subway, thus beginning a journey that will not only threaten his life, but change that of the woman and his mother, as well.