About The Book
His name is Guff. Nearly seventeen, naïve, and with limited schooling, he’s had enough of being beaten by his father. He walks away from their small Nebraska farm, hops a freight train, and soon finds himself in a Dallas jail.
There, two things occur that will change his life. The first is that he forms an unlikely friendship with a sticky-fingered pickpocket, cellmate, Nick ‘Picnic’ Larson. The second is the realization that he has a unique mental talent, a perfect recall of numbers, and a superb ability at recognizing patterns in strings of characters.
My Thoughts
I always had a fascination with the 1940s movie world, be it Bollywood or Hollywood.
This book came to me like a lifesaver on a gloomy, rainy afternoon.
The storyline follows Guff, who had enough of his father beating him even if he's only had a short education, is almost seventeen, and is naïve.
He leaves their modest Nebraska farm, boards a freight train, and is soon imprisoned in Dallas. There, two events take place that will alter his life. The first is that Nick "Picnic" Larson, his cellmate and a thief with gooey fingers, develops an unexpected bond.
The second is the knowledge that he possesses a special mental gift, perfect number recall, and an exceptional capacity for spotting patterns in long strings of characters.
Author Carole Eglash-Kosoff's writing style is simply brilliant and engaging.
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About the Author
Carole Eglash-Kosoff is a novelist, playwright, and documentary filmmaker. She lives and writes in Valley Village, California. She graduated from UCLA and spent her career teaching, writing, and traveling to more than seventy countries. In 2006, following the death of her husband, mother, and brother within one month, she spent part of two years teaching in the black townships of South Africa.
Her first book, The Human Spirit - Apartheid's Unheralded Heroes (www.thehumanspirit-thebook.com), tells the stories of amazing men and women who devoted their lives during the worst years of apartheid to help the children, the elderly, and the disabled of the townships. These people cared when no one else did and their efforts continue to this day. The Human Spirit was adapted as a play and received considerable acclaim when it was presented in 2013.
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