Twelve Miles to Midnight, by André Narbonne
The first three stories in this short story collection feature a young boy named Derek and his mother who are, for reasons we do not yet know, fleeing. The mother rousts the boy out of bed well past midnight to drive to check on their worldly possessions which are in a parked moving van on a highway. In this unsettled way, the reader embarks with Derek as he negotiates the perils of life as a child and outsider in a small town, isolation and responsibility in his job as an engineer at sea, and the flow and ebb of a relationship.…