Ocean Road by Glynn Parry

Opening Sentence:In the summer of '76, the day my father rushed home to San Antonio to be with his sister Ruth, a man stopped my mother in the street.
Synopsis:My father grabbed my mother's hand and then my own, and he ran us across the cool sand to the water's edge. He whooped seagulls into the sky.
'Happy new year!' he yelled at the noise and spray.
My mother yelled the same. 'Happy new year!'
They were very good actors.

In the summer of 1976, Frank and Laura travel down south to a cottage by the sea. Their son Toby lays bare all that he sees. It is the summer Frank is called away and Laura meets a man in the street. It is a summer of fragile lives and uncertain times, of loss and longing, and secrets that can destroy. It is the summer one phone call changes a marriage forever.
Genre:Young Adult
Rating:@@@
Pages:224
BCID:xxx-5823414
ISBN:978-1-8636-8354-8
Year:2007
Format:Paperback
Comments:We all come to a moment in our lives where we suddenly discover that our parents are not the all-powerful, all-knowing gods that we thought they were; a moment when we come to a sudden awareness of our parents' humanity - with all the faults, foibles and weaknesses that that implies. We feel the ground shift beneath our feet as we realise that our parents, our family, our world are fleeting and fragile. For Toby, that moment came in the summer of 1976. The summer his father was called away. The summer his parents marriage disintegrated. The summer of change. This is a powerful coming-of-age story to which we can all relate.