Tim Wenzell

Absent Children Tim Wenzell

Eddie Shemanki is a paranoid seventeen year old boy who had built a secret room in his closet to hide from kidnappers who have already taken his baby brother Benjamin from his crib. Fearing their return and tiring of the incessant wailing of his mother, Eddie runs away from home and begins a journey that will lead him into to a quest to find Benjamin. Hiding in a cave and working in a restaurant, Eddie's solitude leads him into encounters with a variety of eccentric characters, from a friend who is allergic to dust to a Vietnam vet to an old woman who worships her dead husband like a God. Then Eddie meets "The Men of Fire," Good Samaritans who will help him in his quest to bring Benjamin home. Behind everything are the Philadelphia Phillies and their perpetual losing seasons, along with Eddie's past, filled with his days of Catholic school and the memorizing of saints and Eddie's unfilled desire to own a giant monitor lizard, all of which propel the novel to Eddie's inevitable destiny.