This is a story that is good to the last drop! I love his writing, his characters and the tension he creates in this novel set in Seattle in two eras--the 60s and the 2000s. There are no right answers; cities are built on dreams and graft and vision; humans have gifts and failings. We all want heroes but they are flawed when you dig deep enough. This is the perfect book to read thinking ahead to the presidential election. We wonder why the people who run for office do so knowing there is such peril to their families and friends and in a world of sound bites and innuendo circulated in 140 characters on the likes of Twitter, I wonder what, if anything, they think they can communicate. In spite of this, Lynch's book is a hopeful book--there are those men who, rather than seeing the world as bad and demoralizing, still can enjoy a ferry crossing the river, can imagine ripe blackberries and small boys and grown men comforting their mothers. Such a lovely novel. - Gayle