Shining sea

When Michael Gannon, war hero and devout Catholic, dies on the front lawn of their yellow house in California in 1962, his wife Barbara and their children must learn to manage without him. They find themselves charting paths they never anticipated, from the beaches of Southern California to the Woodstock rock festival, from London's gritty nightlife to Scotland's remote Inner Hebrides, from the dry heat of Arizona to the fertile farmland of Massachusetts. Told with cinematic sweep, Shining Sea is a profound depiction of the ripple effects of war, the passing down of memory, the making of myth, and the power of the ideal of heroism to lead us astray but also to keep us afloat. --