For Ages
12 to 99

Sometimes Fitz would look at himself in the mirror, an expression of pathetic eagerness on his face. He was a dog in the pound, wanting to be adopted. He'd smile. What father wouldn't want this boy?

Fifteen-year-old Fitzgerald—Fitz, to his friends—has just learned that his father, whom he's never met, who supports him but is not a part of his life, is living nearby. Fitz begins to follow him, watch him, study him, and on an otherwise ordinary May morning, he executes a plan to force his father, at gunpoint, to be with him.

Over the course of one spring day, Fitz and his father become real to one another. Fitz learns about his father, why he's chosen to remain distant and what really happened between him and Fitz's mother. And his father learns what sort of boy his son has grown up to become.

An Excerpt fromFitz

1

On a cool morning in late May, Fitz is standing in the alley behind his father's apartment in St. Paul. Truth be told, lurking is what he's doing. Trying to act as if he belongs here, as if maybe he's waiting for a ride. Keeping an eye on the door, checking the clock on his phone from time to time, doing his best not to look suspicious, doing his best not to look criminal.

This is one of the fancier neighborhoods in the city--"the Historic Summit Hill District." That's what real-estate agents call it. It's where F. Scott Fitzgerald, the famous writer his mother named him for, lived a hundred years ago. It's full of yuppies--Geoffries and Jennas, his friend Caleb calls them, Pasta-Hounds. It's less than five miles away from where Fitz lives with his mother on the city's west side, but it took him forty minutes to get here on the bus. He had to cross one of the longest rivers in the world--the Mississippi--and transfer downtown.

His father's building is red stone, the walls…

Under the Cover