Parallel Lines

About the Book

Streetwise seventeen-year-old Nick Verseau has spent the last decade moving from one foster home to another. This time he lands in the suburbs where he knows he doesn’t fit in. He wears attitude like armor, a survival skill that enabled him to deal with his past: a dead father, an abusive stepfather, and separation from his brother and mother. Nick’s mother has been in the state hospital for almost a decade, and it’s been several years since he has seen her.

In a class assignment where students are to write their life story, Nick includes some of the rough details, and claims he never thinks about his mother anymore. His English teacher, Mrs. Cumberland, challenges him about that. “I don’t believe you never think about your mother,” she tells him. “Mine died when I was sixteen and it was the worst thing to happen to me” The teacher encourages him to keep a journal to earn extra credit in composition class. Okay, he’ll play her little game since he has nothing better to do in those endless study halls and daily detentions.

Nick has led a damaged life, and the odds are against him.

About the Author

Coyote Gordon is a pseudonym for Zanesville, Ohio, poet and writer Laura Moe. Ms. Gordon has been a high school and middle school art teacher and librarian, and is active in her local writing community. She holds an MFA in creative nonfiction from Goucher College, and is currently working on a memoir.