I kept waiting for this book to veer into mawkishness, and it is to Dave King's enormous credit that he managed to avoid this particular trap. For a first novel, this is pretty impressive, and I will definitely be on the lookout for further work by this author. Not a perfect book by any means, but a very good one. It has an understated power that creeps up on you. I recommend it highly. I'm deliberately stingy with my five-star ratings, but I did consider it here. Which probably translates to 4.5 stars, truth be told.

The Ha-Ha

A debut novel of extraordinary emotional When a mute war veteran opens his home to a young boy, he gets a glimpse of life outside his shell--with all its exuberant joys and crushing sorrows.Its been 30 years since a Vietnam War injury left Howard Kapostash unable to speak, read, or write. Since then he can communicate only with sounds and gestures--a condition that makes him appear slow and disturbed. But inside his head, Howie is the same man he was before the war, longing for Sylvia, his high school sweetheart, and mourning his parents and his chance at a family. Howies solitude comes to an abrupt end with a desperate phone call in the middle of the night; Sylvia is being forced into rehab and needs him to care for her nine-year-old son Ryan until she returns. Though Ryans first days with Howie are strained by misunderstanding, his presence gradually transforms Howie and his entire household, which includes Laurel, a soup chef, and a pair of housepainters Howie grumpily thinks of as Nit and Nat. By midsummer, their once-cold home is alive with the happiness, disappointment, and love of a real family. But with Sylvias return imminent, Howie is obliged to wonder if the change is only temporary--and to reconsider, in the process, just what the war cost him.Triumphant and heartbreaking, THE HA-HA tells a singular and engaging story and heralds the arrival of a tremendous new voice in fiction.

A mute Vietnam War veteran's life changes when he cares for a young boy, leading to unexpected emotional growth.

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