Jesse's Ghost — Frank Bergon

Everybody loved Jesse. Boys wanted to be him--or beat him--and girls wanted to be with him. In a place where fist fighting was a noble sport, and drinking and sex were the only forms of cheap entertainment for teenagers, Jesse was the toughest kid in the valley. Until he was murdered by his best friend.

Told without nostalgia or sentimentality, Jesse's Ghost is a powerful novel about a man haunted by the crime he committed decades ago and the realization that the ghosts of his past will always haunt him. These are the sons and daughters of the people portrayed in Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath--the generation who came of age when toughness, hard work, and loyalty defined what it meant to be a man in America. Through the chaos that surrounded him, the risks he took, and despite the mistakes he made, Jesse pursued the American Dream. His best friend Sonny, through the moving, funny, and tragic story he narrates in Jesse's Ghost, seeks a new life and redemption.