Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0440339332, Mass Market Paperback)

The place is Ithaca, in California's San Joaquin  Valley. The time is World War II. The family is  the Macauley's -- a mother, sister, and three  brothers whose struggles and dreams reflect those of  America's second-generation immigrants.. In  particular, fourteen-year-old Homer, determined to become  one of the fastest telegraph messengers in the  West, finds himself caught between reality and  illusion as delivering his messages of wartime death,  love, and money brings him face-to-face with human  emotion at its most naked and raw.

Gentle,  poignant and richly autobiographical, this  delightful novel shows us the boy becoming the man in a  world that even in the midst of war, appears  sweeter, safer and more livable than out own.