One Summer of Lightning

About the Book

Beebee Muise is only 17, when she flees the funeral parlor where her childhood love, Ray Miller, lies dead.

Tom is an ex-prisoner of war, scarred by two and a half years in a Japanese prison. He plucks Beebee out of the way of a jeep, and the two find themselves in the midst of a crowd, hell-bent on celebrating the end of World War II. They have one night together, one night in which to share their stories of the shades of death, their aborted loves.

About the Author

GLADYS SCHEFFRIN-FALK left her hometown of Atlantic City, New Jersey at age 19. But in "One Summer of Lightning," the imprint of an Atlantic City that no longer exists is apparent. Scheffrin-Falk was a scholarship student in the New School novel workshop that produced such writers as William Styron, Sigrid De Lima and Nancy Hallinan. Her children's book, "Another Celebrated Dancing Bear," Scribner's 1991, was selected by the New York TIMES as one of the ten best illustrated books of the year, won an award in the Ezra Jack Keats-UNICEF international competition and traveled through Europe as part of an exhibition.