End of Summer

A young boy. An old man. And a journey of the heart.

My fraternal twin, Michael, died two hours after birth, drowning from fluid in his lungs. When I was two, my Mom and Dad were killed in a head-on collision with a tractor-trailer. I was reared by Granddaddy and Granny, who had lived with my folks in the same rented home. I remembered neither my parents' lives nor their deaths. I suppose that's a blessing and a curse. My grandparents had provided details my young mind could understand, but I pushed them away. I did not want them.

Back in that field after thirty years, I stood poised at the edge of an abyss.

End of Summer is a poignant, literary novel that explores the mysteries of life, love and death through the eyes of a nine year old boy...interpreted by the man he grew to be.

A deeply moving and passionate book, Michael Potts' End of Summer is a poignant literary novel about childhood and memory. This is contemporary Southern fiction at its best. In textured language and with heartfelt attention to detail, Potts' nuanced portrayal of rural life in southern Appalachia and a young boy's initial encounter with death reminds us that life at the economic margins can be culturally and spiritually rich, and that even as absences and losses sometimes damage us, these can also strengthen and redeem.
- Michael Colonnese, Ph.D.
Author of Sex and Death, I Suppose and Temporary Agency