**A haunting and unforgettable novel about love, loss, race, and desire
in World War II-era America.
**
On a sweltering day in August 1942, Frankie Washburn returns to his
family's rustic Minnesota resort for one last visit before he joins the
war as a bombardier, headed for the darkened skies over Europe. Awaiting
him are his hovering mother, his distant father, the Indian caretaker
who's been more of a father to him than his own, and Billy, the
childhood friend who over the years has become something much more
intimate. But before the homecoming can be celebrated, the search for a
German soldier, escaped from the POW camp across the river, explodes in
a shocking act of violence, with consequences that will reverberate
years into the future for all of them and that will shape how each of
them makes sense of their lives.
Powerful and wholly original, Prudence is a story of desire, loss, and
the search for connection in a riven world; of race and class in a
supposedly more innocent era. Most profoundly, it's about the secrets we
choose to keep, the ones we can't help telling, and whom - and how -
we're supposed to love.