conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me a description for a book titled Please Don't Come Back from the Moon about Michael, Michael's, Reed with the genre: Literature & Fiction, United States.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: "When I was sixteen, my father went to the moon." Thus begins this debut novel about the mysterious disappearance of the men from a working-class suburb of Detroit. They go gradually, one by one, leaving for parts unknown&mdash;though more than one mentions the rocky orb up above. Michael Smolij's father is one of the last to vanish; once he's gone, Michael's musician mother plays "Norwegian Wood" on her violin, then takes two jobs to make ends meet. Michael, like all the boys in the neighborhood, has to grow up fast, working at the mall while taking community college courses. When Michael's mother remarries and moves away, leaving him the family house, Michael lands a job as a writer at a local radio station and starts dating a single mother with a five-year-old son, as if in an attempt to singlehandedly forge a new family for himself. The process of settling down, however, awakens a strange restlessness in him. Magic serves more as an emotional undercurrent than a mystery in this odd novel, part fable and part gritty realist chronicle. As the author writes in an author's note, the book is a kind of elegy for his father's generation of downtrodden working-class men, but their disappointments are tempered by the modest hopes and ambitions of their sons in this gentle and moving tale. <BR>Copyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: "When I was sixteen, my father went to the moon." Thus begins this debut novel about the mysterious disappearance of the men from a working-class suburb of Detroit. They go gradually, one by one, leaving for parts unknown&mdash;though more than one mentions the rocky orb up above. Michael Smolij's father is one of the last to vanish; once he's gone, Michael's musician mother plays "Norwegian Wood" on her violin, then takes two jobs to make ends meet. Michael, like all the boys in the neighborhood, has to grow up fast, working at the mall while taking community college courses. When Michael's mother remarries and moves away, leaving him the family house, Michael lands a job as a writer at a local radio station and starts dating a single mother with a five-year-old son, as if in an attempt to singlehandedly forge a new family for himself. The process of settling down, however, awakens a strange restlessness in him. Magic serves more as an emotional undercurrent than a mystery in this odd novel, part fable and part gritty realist chronicle. As the author writes in an author's note, the book is a kind of elegy for his father's generation of downtrodden working-class men, but their disappointments are tempered by the modest hopes and ambitions of their sons in this gentle and moving tale. <BR>Copyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first three paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Please Don't Come Back from the Moon
  SINCE I WAS HOME that afternoon, doing nothing, I went to Kolya's school and waited for him at the edge of the playground. I figured I could walk him home, give him one day without getting his ass kicked. When you're a boy, you figure out pretty quick that there's always going to be some asshole hanging around the schoolyard, waiting to kick your ass. I always had enemies, but most of them were too afraid of Nick to fuck with me. They hated me from a distance.
  Kolya looked happy to see me. His shiner had gone down some, and he was looking fresh-faced and innocent again. His backpack looked absolutely huge on him, and I pictured him as a soldier back from a mission. He had red jelly all over his lips.
  We walked a couple of blocks, both of us quiet. I was trying to say something that was comforting or wise, because it didn't look to me like he'd had a good day. Because he was on Ritalin, sometimes I felt like he was depressed; but then, how can you tell if a twelve-year-old is depressed? With kids, sometimes they're probably just thinking about Spider Man or whatever, and you think they're contemplating the Apocalypse.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me three more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I followed her out into the parking lot. I caught up with her by her old white Dodge truck. She was fumbling with the lock. "You're becoming quite the champion," I said. It was a cold night and I was shivering.
  She got into her truck and started it, but not before I ran around the front end and hopped in the passenger seat.
  She started laughing. "You've given this some thought, huh? Why would you think that one customer in Maple Rock Mall would ever be interested in reading Dostoyevsky?"
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: I followed her out into the parking lot. I caught up with her by her old white Dodge truck. She was fumbling with the lock. "You're becoming quite the champion," I said. It was a cold night and I was shivering.
  She got into her truck and started it, but not before I ran around the front end and hopped in the passenger seat.
  She started laughing.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last four paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Perhaps you read this now and think of us as fools, consider us naïve for believing as long as we believed that you had gone to the moon, for believing that some day you'd come home.
  I OWE MANY THINGS to many people. Here goes. First of all, thanks to my editor, Becky Saletan, for her enthusiasm, intelligence, and vision, and to everybody at Harcourt who helped pull this together, including André Bernard, Stacia Decker, Laurie Brown, Jennifer Gilmore, Patty Berg, and Paul Von Drasek.
  Also to the good folks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison MFA program, who provided focus, funding, and their amazing instruction in the nick of time: Lorrie Moore, Coach Judy Mitchell, Ron Wallace, Jesse Lee Kercheval, and Amy Quan Barry. Also to the University of Michigan, where these people first gave the go sign: Nick Delbanco, Andrea Beauchamp, Daniel Lyons, Janet Mendier, and especially Charles "Pa" Baxter and Eileen "Ma" Pollack who were never too busy to offer encouragement and advice.
  Finally, to four people who have made all the difference: Elwood Reid, who showed me the light over and over again and taught me what work is; Mark Gates, sales rep extraordinaire, for generosity and friendship above and beyond the call; my agent and pal, Amy Williams, for her tenacity, wisdom, and patience; and finally to my wife, Amanda Okopski, for bringing creativity, wonder, passion, and joy to me on a daily basis.