Friday Freebie: Father Figure by Lamar Herrin

Congratulations to Sam Hobbs and Terry Pearson, winners of last week’s Friday Freebie: Fill the Sky by Katherine Sherbrooke.

This week’s contest is for Father Figure by Lamar Herrin. Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families, had this to say about the novel: “What a remarkable, evocative book. Lamar Herrin is a consummate story-teller, and Father Figure is a richly imagined American story of patrimony and baseball and war and the inheritance of history’s wounds told with great physical immediacy and a seemingly effortless emotional intensity.” Keep scrolling for more information about the book...

Imagine a baby boy born in the last year of World War II to parents who, pre-war, were the darlings of the town. The father, a four-letter man, the golden boy of the town and state’s athletic fields, and his spirited and beautiful bride, were both enormously engaging personalities. The son knows his father both through the legendary, pre-war stories he has heard about him and his bride and as a one-legged casualty of the Battle of the Bulge, a powerful and embittered man, who returns from the war. How to square those two versions of his parents, and of his father especially? That is the subject matter of Father Figure—that quest and lengths to which the son is willing to go to regain a father he never had and the efforts of a sister and a past lover to save him before he goes too far.

If you’d like a chance at winning Father Figure, simply email your name and mailing address to

thequiveringpen@gmail.com

Put FRIDAY FREEBIE in the e-mail subject line. Please include your mailing address in the body of the e-mail. One entry per person, please. This contest is limited to those with an address in the U.S. Despite its name, the Friday Freebie remains open to entries until midnight on Nov. 3, at which time I’ll draw the winning name. I’ll announce the lucky reader on Nov. 4. If you’d like to join the mailing list for the once-a-week newsletter, simply add the words “Sign me up for the newsletter” in the body of your email. Your email address and other personal information will never be sold or given to a third party (except in those instances where the publisher requires a mailing address for sending Friday Freebie winners copies of the book).

Want to double your odds of winning? Get an extra entry in the contest by posting a link to this webpage on your blog, your Facebook wall or by tweeting it on Twitter. Once you’ve done any of those things, send me an additional e-mail saying “I’ve shared” and I’ll put your name in the hat twice.