Bringing Tony Home

Set in the 1940s and 1960s, Bringing Tony Home is a masterful modern example of a timeless genre, the bildungsroman. In the title novella, a boy returns to his old home to find Tony, his beloved dog who was abandoned when economic circumstances forced the family to leave. Bringing Tony Home recounts this perilous journey in detail, movingly tracing the boys rescue attempts and his spiraling emotions as he endures changes occurring in his family. In Elsewhere: Something Like a Love Story, a young boy finds forbidden love with a schoolmate scorned for her poverty. Elsewhere continues their saga, touching on the bittersweet memories they share as adults, and on the womans increasingly precarious place in a society concerned only with status. The other stories, Poor Young Man: A Requiem and Hark, The Moaning Pond: A Grandmothers Tale, delve into a young mans relationship with his father as the latters fortunes fade, and into the now-mature mans attempts to come to grips with the death of his grandmother and what she symbolized. Abeysekaras ability to evoke the sights and sounds of another time and place, and his skill in rendering the inner lives of his characters, make Bringing Tony Home a remarkable read.