Joseph Bentz

A Son Comes Home Joseph Bentz

United Only in Grief, a Family Struggles to Heal Old Wounds

"I wanted to kill my brother the day he died. I think back to that with embarrassment now, and with guilt. At the moment his body was being crushed in a tangle of glass and steel, I was stomping around the garage like a madman, flinging his tools against the back of the garage door?denouncing him for his lies and betrayal?."

With inimitable style and a fresh voice, newcomer Joseph Bentz updates the universal themes of reconciliation and the prodigal?s return with A Son Comes Home. This contemporary novel about family contains characters so richly crafted you will feel you?ve know the LaRue family?their hopes and pains?all your life.

Chris LaRue had fled his Indiana home after the grief and pain surrounding his brother?s death became too much to bear. Now, two summers later, he returns and though the secrets that Chris? brother took to the grave still linger over the family?especially over Chris? strained relationship with his perfectionist father?there is still a flicker of hope that leads them forward.

As old wounds keep the family apart, new challenges?a sudden financial crisis, a sister?s rebellion?threaten to shatter them forever. Linked only by their pain and the remembrances of the past, the tenuous bonds holding the family together could only be healed by something greater than time itself. The family?s journey toward restoration is not easy but it becomes all the more powerful when we see how leaning on God and reconnecting with those we love can bring both reconciliation and true unity.