The Last Good Summer: A Novel of Boyhood and Consequences

Some summers leave a mark that never fades.

The summer Evan Cole turns fourteen begins the way every good one does: his best friend's skiff, a two-gallon gas can held together with electrical tape, and eleven weeks with no schedule except the river. Evan and Micah Ruiz have been partners since fourth grade. Micah drives. Evan decides where to go. Micah fixes what breaks. Evan talks enough for both of them.

Then, outside a convenience store where the town road becomes the landfill road, they see three older boys standing over a man sitting on the curb. What Evan and Micah do in the next ninety seconds is small. It is also the moment the summer stops being ordinary.

His name is Eli, and he is living in an abandoned school bus at the edge of the tree line. The boys start bringing sandwiches in wax paper. Eli gives them a rule in return: not two days in a row. Don't become a pattern. Because this is the kind of place that notices you, and the county has already noticed the bus.

When an inspection date goes up on county paper, the boys have nine days to learn what help is worth when every visit makes a man easier to find. The cost climbs - for Eli, for Micah's grandmother, who never asks the questions she plainly has, and finally for the friendship that has carried both boys since they were nine.

THIRD EDITION (2026): substantially expanded from the original novella-length release into a full novel of nearly 65,000 words, with chapters that give Eli his own interior life, follow the friendship to its breaking point, bring the county's inspection onto the page, and carry the story into a coda twenty-six years later. Reviews dated before October 2026 refer to earlier editions. Includes a Book Club Discussion Guide.