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Duncan's entire world is the orphanage where he lives, a solitary outpost on the open plains of northern Minnesota. Aged ten in 1980, he has no memories of his life before now, but he has stories that he recites like prayers: the story of how his mother brought him here during the worst blizzard of the century; the story of how God spoke to him at his birth and gave him a special purpose.Duncan is sure that his mother is dead until the day she turns up to claim him. Maggie Bright, a soprano who was once the talent of her generation, now sings in a San Francisco bar through a haze of whisky cut with sharp regret. She often finishes up in the arms of Joshua McGreevey, a Vietnam vet who earns his living as part of a tunneling crew seventy feet beneath the Bay. He smells of sea silt and loam, as if he has been dredged from the deep bottom of the world - and his wounds run deep too.Thrown into this mysterious adult world, Duncan finds comfort in an ancient radio, from which tumble the voices of Apollo mission astronauts who never came home, and dreams of finding his real father.A heart-breaking, staggering, soaring novel, This Magnificent Desolation allows a child's perspective to illuminate a dark world, and explores the creeping devastation of war, the many facets of loneliness, the redemptive power of the imagination, and the possibility of a kind of grace.

Duncan's whole world is the orphanage where he lives. Aged ten, he is sure that his mother is dead until the day she turns up to claim him. Maggie Bright, a soprano who was once the talent of her generation, now sings in a run-down bar through a haze of whisky and regret. She often finishes up in the arms of Joshua McGreevey, a Vietnam vet who earns his living as part of a tunneling crew seventy feet beneath the Bay. Thrown into this adult world of mysterious suffering, Duncan finds comfort in an ancient radio - from which tumble the voices of Apollo mission astronauts who never came home - and dreams of one day finding his father.

Sam and Ed live the high life, and see no reason to add to their happy twosome. Then 11–year–old Scot's mother dies, and a wine–soaked promise pushes the couple into parenthood. They dutifully make all the usual arrangements, but Scot is far from usual, sporting makeup and enduring bullying at school. Soon Sam and Ed begin to question their parenting, their commitment to each other, and the compromises they've made to live in a straight society. Breakfast with Scot is a humorous, heartwarming novel about the true meaning of family.