Zusatztext A beautifully rendered tale about the power of love. St. Louis Post-Dispatch If you love Pay It Forward ! The Notebook and The Five People You'll Meet in Heaven ! this novel will envelop you like a fuzzy blanket. USA Today Using spare! simple prose! Hyde explores the nuances of love. . . . Arresting. The Charlotte Observer An enthralling take on the enduring bonds of family. Life Informationen zum Autor CATHERINE RYAN HYDE is a critically acclaimed novelist and award-winning short story writer. She is the author of more than forty published stories, the story collection Earthquake Weather and the novels Funerals for Horses , Pay it Forward , Electric God , and the new Walter's Purple Heart . The national bestseller Pay It Forward was adapted into a major Warner Brothers feature film starring Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, and Haley Joel Osment ("The Sixth Sense"). Electric God and Walter's Purple Heart are also optioned for film and in development. Klappentext From the bestselling author of Pay It Forward comes a moving novel about the bond between a five year old abandoned by his mother and the man who raises him. After accidentally killing a police office five years ago, Pearl has managed to protect her bright, frail young son Leonard from her violent past. Then one day, Pearl drops him off with their neighbor Mitch, and never returns. Mitch is far from the ideal caretaker--he's having an affair with a client's wife--but he and Leonard must find a way to bridge the gap between them as they bond as parent and child.Gritty but big-hearted, Love in the Present Tense is an inspiring story of love and the surprising forms it can take. Leseprobe PEARL, age 13: dying lessons One night when I was seven I watched a man die. He was on the street under my bedroom window. I was on my knees looking out. The sound, it had woke me. The window was open for air, which there was not much of, and what there was did not move. The curtain did not blow aside, and it was dark in my room, and I knew they could not see me. The man who was going to die was on his knees. Like myself. Only with his arms out. Not up, like a stickup. Straight out, like Christ on his cross, only with his knees bent. I call him a man because I was only seven at the time. To me he looked big. Now I can remember his face, both before and after, and I know he was maybe sixteen. But I mistook him for a man. The guys doing the killing, there were three, standing up. Laughing, which is what woke me I think. One of them had a sawed-off shotgun right in the man's face. Sort of a man. I guess if you are about to die like that, you're more than a boy. Now the sort-of-man, he started to cry. Big crocodile tears. Or what they call that, anyway. Why they call them crocodile tears I don't know. I have never seen a crocodile cry. I have never seen a crocodile. But I watched a man die. So I know some things. Only maybe they are not the best things to know. Then the almost-dead man, he started up begging. Please, he said. Please, think of my mama. Think of the kids I ain't even get to have yet. Please don't do this, I'll do anything, what do you want me to do? His shoulders shook, like a little earthquake right under the street that nobody could feel but him. His own little personal seven point one, just under his knees. Please, he said, and the one with the sawed-off shotgun shot him in the face. Then the three, they walked off laughing. Turned the corner, laughing. I had to keep watching, because I was afraid to not watch. I was afraid to go back to bed. Because the dead sort-of-man, he would still be there. He had to be where I could see. I remember real good what he looked like after, but it's something I do not plan to say a whole lot about. Because some th...

#8220;A beautifully rendered tale about the power of love.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch“If you love Pay It Forward, The Notebook and The Five People You'll Meet in Heaven, this novel will envelop you like a fuzzy blanket.”—USA Today“Using spare, simple prose, Hyde explores the nuances of love. . . . Arresting.”—The Charlotte Observer “An enthralling take on the enduring bonds of family.”—Life

Autorentext

CATHERINE RYAN HYDE is a critically acclaimed novelist and award-winning short story writer. She is the author of more than forty published stories, the story collection Earthquake Weather and the novels Funerals for Horses, Pay it Forward, Electric God, and the new Walter's Purple Heart. The national bestseller Pay It Forward was adapted into a major Warner Brothers feature film starring Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, and Haley Joel Osment ("The Sixth Sense"). Electric God and Walter's Purple Heart are also optioned for film and in development.

Klappentext

From the bestselling author of Pay It Forward comes a moving novel about the bond between a five year old abandoned by his mother and the man who raises him. After accidentally killing a police office five years ago, Pearl has managed to protect her bright, frail young son Leonard from her violent past. Then one day, Pearl drops him off with their neighbor Mitch, and never returns. Mitch is far from the ideal caretaker--he's having an affair with a client's wife--but he and Leonard must find a way to bridge the gap between them as they bond as parent and child.Gritty but big-hearted, Love in the Present Tense is an inspiring story of love and the surprising forms it can take.

Zusammenfassung
**From the New York Times bestselling author of Seven Perfect Things comes a moving novel about the bond between a five-year-old abandoned by his mother and the man who raises him.

"This novel will envelop you like a fuzzy blanket.” —USA Today
**
After accidentally killing a police office five years ago, Pearl has managed to protect her bright, frail young son Leonard from her violent past. Then one day, Pearl drops him off with their neighbor Mitch, and never returns. Mitch is far from the ideal caretaker--he’s having an affair with a client’s wife--but he and Leonard must find a way to bridge the gap between them as they bond as parent and child.

Gritty but big-hearted, Love in the Present Tense is an inspiring story of love and the surprising forms it can take.

Leseprobe
PEARL, age 13: dying lessons

One night when I was seven I watched a man die. He was on the street under my bedroom window. I was on my knees looking out. The sound, it had woke me. The window was open for air, which there was not much of, and what there was did not move. The curtain did not blow aside, and it was dark in my room, and I knew they could not see me.

The man who was going to die was on his knees. Like myself. Only with his arms out. Not up, like a stickup. Straight out, like Christ on his cross, only with his knees bent. I call him a man because I was only seven at the time. To me he looked big. Now I can remember his face, both before and after, and I know he was maybe sixteen. But I mistook him for a man.

The guys doing the killing, there were three, standing up. Laughing, which is what woke me I think. One of them had a sawed-off shotgun right in the man's face. Sort of a man. I guess if you are about to die like that, you're more than a boy.

Now the sort-of-man, he started to cry. Big crocodile tears. Or what they call that, anyway. Why they call them crocodile tears I don't know. I have never seen a crocodile cry. I have never seen a crocodile. But I watched a man die. So I know some things. Only maybe they are not the best things to know.

Then the almost-dead man, he started up begging. Please, he said. Please, think of my mama. Think of the kids I ain't even get to have yet. Please don't do this, I'll do anything, what do you want me to do? His shoulders shook, like a little earthquak…