The Gift

A powerful short novel that’s vintage Hamill-an evocative, emotionally involving tale of fathers and sons, loss and yearning, forgiveness and approbation-is restored to print. Brooklyn, 1952. It is Christmastime and a young sailor named Pete is home on leave, temporarily liberated from the specter of war in Korea. He’s back in the old neighborhood, discovering firsthand that the girl he left behind evidently meant what she said in the Dear John letter she sent him. He’s back in the dreary Seventh Avenue apartment that his mother can ill afford to decorate for the holidays. And he’s back facing off with Billy, the gruff Irish factory worker who is his father, yet seems forever a stranger-until, on Christmas Eve, Pete pays his first visit to Rattigan’s, the local bar where his father hangs out, the place where Billy seems most fully alive.