The Toadvine Papers: A Memory

Ernest Toadvine Jr. is on course to become one of the most celebrated sculptors of the 20th Century, but on a blustery October day in post-World War II Cincinnati, after mustering out of the Merchant Marines, he just needs a place to stay.

He is directed to a boarding house run by the single mother and aunt of Alex Kemp, a boy who is just about to start school. They didn't know that their lives would be, from that time on, as intertwined as the intricate toad-and-vine tattoo that Ernest spor...