Amateur - Chris Bohjalian

1978

In the sleepy New York suburb of Tallmadge, eighteen-year-old Mira Winston is beguiling, talented, and full of youthful recklessness. She spends her summer perfecting her swing at her parents country club and continuing her long-running affair with her father s golf buddy, a married man twice her age.

Then, one August afternoon, a freak accident occurs, and Mira s classmate Kenny is killed. In the days and years that follow, the events of that day become inextricably tied to the choices she has made with devastating, unpredictable consequences for her family, her neighbours and friends, and Mira herself.

She is forced to ask: what happens when one small moment the swing of a golf club, a stolen kiss, a hastily written note changes the course of an entire life?