The School on Heart's Content Road

A New York Times Notable Book: A group forms its own surrogate family on the margins of society in this novel by the author of The Beans of Egypt, Maine.

Mickey Gammon, fifteen, has dropped out of school and been kicked out of his home. But he has found a new place in the Settlement—a rural cooperative that deals in alternative energy, farm produce, and locally made goods. Run by "The Prophet," the Settlement is demonized by the media as a compound of sin, but its true nature remains fore...