420 pages
English language
Published Dec. 30, 1995 by Dell, Random House Publishing Group.
The doctor's office is cool, white, sterile. But the doctor's words are searing: blood tests prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Margaret and Arthur Crawfield's beloved, dying son is not their child. Now they must face Peter's death and the shock of having a son they have never met. Grieving, yet compelled, they begin a search that will tear two families apart. Laura and "Bud" Rice share an elegant home and two children, brilliant, handsome Tom, and cherished, chronically ill eleven-year-old Timmy. But after nineteen years of marriage, Laura's respectable husband is a stranger and the reason for Tom's escalating involvement with a group of campus bigots. Suddenly the Crawfields enter their lives and shatter their fragile world. As the Rices' quiet Southern town explodes with hate and violence, the two familes must embrace or be destroyed by the shattering truth."
I really wish we could give half stars. It’s a solid 3.5 but not a four. The writing is too poor for a four. It’s sadly timely even though it was written decades ago. The anger and pain the differences in political and religious opinion continue to this day and probably always will.
