The Gunners. Rebecca Kauffman
heart and settle in for a lifetime. In this lovely, truthful novel of six people who have been friends since childhood, Rebecca Kauffman strips enduring love of all its usual romantic costumery, and shows us how it actually works.”
—martha woodroof, author of Small Blessings
“I inhaled The Gunners in a single sitting because I couldn’t stand to be away from it once I started it. Rebecca Kauffman’s brilliantly rendered story of six childhood friends tells the hard truth about human love—what it seems to be from far away, and what it really is up close—boldly, with compassion and warmth and humor.”
—kayla rae whitaker, author of The Animators
“Perceptive, funny, and endearing . . . Reminiscent of The Big Chill and St. Elmo’s Fire, this remarkable novel is just as satisfying and provides readers with an entire cast of characters who will feel like old friends upon finishing.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Kauffman has created vivid and compelling characters struggling with what is in some ways the most universal dilemma: how to grow up. Mikey especially is mature and thoughtful but not at all precious; and the boisterous, hilarious Alice is charming despite her best efforts to behave otherwise. In fluid prose, Kauffman lays bare the lessons of youth and truth. A layered and loving bildungsroman of friendship.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Neither dark nor despairing, this work admirably expresses the satisfying comfort derived from the survival of such long-term friendships even as it evokes sadness about the losses and challenges that come with transitioning to adulthood. A successful sophomore effort after Kauffman’s well-received first novel, Another Place You’ve Never Been.”
—Library Journal
“A little bit like The Big Chill, Kauffman’s (Another Place You’ve Never Been, 2016) quiet and deep second novel reconciles the responsibilities we carry and the secrets we keep with the outsize pleasure of being known and loved by a chosen family.”
—Booklist
“Kauffman is back with a book that doesn’t disappoint, and manages to avoid the hackneyed tropes that many books about friendship fall back on . . . Friendship is its own kind of love, and Kauffman captures the messiness of long friendships that span years, along with reconciling past histories, in such a way that feels new.”
—Heard Tell
“Nostalgic, gracious, and tenderhearted, The Gunners is a welcome addition to the growing arena of books celebrating the beauty of friendship.”
—Fathom
THE GUNNERS
Copyright © 2018 by Rebecca Kauffman
First paperback edition: 2019
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright
Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of
brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
to actual events is unintended and entirely coincidental.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover as follows:
Names: Kauffman, Rebecca, author.
Title: The Gunners : a novel / Rebecca Kauffman.
Description: Berkeley, CA : Counterpoint Press, [2018]
Identifiers: LCCN 2017040045 | ISBN 9781619029897 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Self-actualization (Psychology)—Fiction. | Interpersonal
relations—Fiction. | Self-realization—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3611.A82325 G86 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017040045
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64009-194-8
Cover design by Nicole Caputo
Book design by Wah-Ming Chang
COUNTERPOINT
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318
Berkeley, CA 94710
Printed in the United States of America
Distributed by Publishers Group West
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
For George
For we live with those retrievals from childhood that coalesce and echo throughout our lives, the way shattered pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope reappear in new forms and are songlike in their refrains and rhymes, making up a single monologue. We live
permanently in the recurrence of our own stories, whatever story we tell.
michael ondaatje, Divisadero
Chapter 1
Mikey Callahan discovered something about himself when he was six years old.
Students from his first-grade class were taken one at a time from the classroom and ushered to the gymnasium for standard medical tests. The woman who barked his name (although she called for Michael, instead of Mikey, as his classmates knew him) held his hand as she walked him down the hall, and her fingers were as dry and cool as a husk. In the gymnasium, there were rectangular tables, screens, clipboards, grown-ups dressed in white. A man with a rust-colored mustache put a cold rubber point into Mikey’s ears, stared in at them, and led him through a series of easy tests: instructing Mikey to close his eyes and repeat words the man whispered, then listen to two recorded tones and tell him which was louder.
Mikey proceeded to the next station, where he was asked once again to close his eyes, and say “Now,” when he detected that he had been touched, on his face or his arm, by the tip of a pen. Easy. Mikey liked this better than sitting in a classroom, and he enjoyed being touched in this way. Gentle, clinical.
At the final station, an easel at the far end of a long table displayed a white piece of paper with a pyramid of black letters on it. A woman stood next to the paper and pointed at letters one at a time, and Mikey read the letters back to her. The letters got smaller as she moved down the page, and he struggled to read the final two rows. The woman made a note on her clipboard; then she handed him a black plastic spoon and asked him to cover his left eye with it. She replaced the set of letters with a fresh one and repeated the exercise, with similar results.
She said, “Cover your other eye now,” and turned the page on her easel once again.
Mikey did not raise the spoon to his face. He felt the heat of dark blood spreading up into his cheeks. He said, “But that’s my good one.”
The lady said, “What now, hon?”
“I can’t cover this one.” He gestured toward his right eye, puzzled by her request. “It’s the one that works.”
The lady came and knelt before him. She looked at his face and said, “Oh, dear.”
Mikey didn’t understand.
She explained to him that both eyes were supposed to work; most people