In Robert R. McCammon’s Boy’s Life, the sleepy town of Zephyr, Alabama in the early 1960s is anything but ordinary for twelve-year-old Cory Mackenson. When Cory and his father witness a car plunge into the depths of Saxon’s Lake—revealing a murdered man shackled to the wheel—their lives are forever changed, setting Cory on a year-long adventure brimming with mystery, magic, and the bittersweet pangs of growing up. Through floods teeming with snakes, encounters with eccentric townsfolk, brushes with the supernatural, and the shadow of a haunting crime, Cory’s coming-of-age is painted with both the wonder and heartbreak of childhood.

McCammon’s lyrical storytelling weaves together the thrills of youthful imagination, the darkness lurking beneath small-town life, and the enduring bond between father and son, creating a nostalgic, heart-tugging masterpiece that pulses with the wild magic of memory and the ache of innocence lost.