Author Description

It's only June, but sticky, still air has reached record-breaking temperatures. A hurricane heading north is predicted to be the earliest ever to hit land. A kind of fever has overtaken the town. People are behaving strangely. Harry Coburn, a large, kind, caber-tossing postman is no exception. Across town, Bea Willis has her own problems, some old, some new, troublesome all the same. Bea's basement houses a clinic for injured wild animals. The temperatures have animals behaving as oddly as people, and Bea's place is filled with skunks, possums, birds, and a large, female mute swan. During one early summer, in this average town Bea, Harry, and the people entwined with their lives consider life's complex realities and simple mysteries. Each comes to realize that people are social creatures, that human contact is as necessary as breathing, and that life, in all its exceptional ordinariness, is a miracle to be shared.