Book Description

The setting is a Massachusetts mill town in the months leading up to Pearl Harbor. Events in North Eliot revolve around a small variety store operated by Dora Brennan and her husband. The Brennans have a son, Freddie, from whose 10-11-year-old perspective some of the foibles and more serious transgressions of the adults around him are viewed. In one instance, he accidently views his cousins wife nude on a bed with a man she met only hours before. He manages a stealthy retreat and keeps the discovery to himself. One of the major disappointments of Freddie's young life comes when one of the mills in town sells at auction all of the houses it owns on two streets. Freddie is devastated when his parents have insufficient resources to follow through on plans to buy a building in which to combine