If I Ever Get Out of Here

Eric Gansworth

Jul 2014 · Penguin Random House Audio · Narrated by Eric Gansworth

About this audiobook

"A heart-healing, mocs-on-the-ground story of music, family and friendship." -- Cynthia Leitich Smith, author of TANTALIZE and RAIN IS NOT MY INDIAN NAME

Lewis "Shoe" Blake is used to the joys and difficulties of life on the Tuscarora Indian reservation in 1975: the joking, the Fireball games, the snow blowing through his roof. What he's not used to is white people being nice to him -- people like George Haddonfield, whose family recently moved to town with the Air Force. As the boys connect through their mutual passion for music, especially the Beatles, Lewis has to lie more and more to hide the reality of his family's poverty from George. He also has to deal with the vicious Evan Reininger, who makes Lewis the special target of his wrath. But when everyone else is on Evan's side, how can he be defeated? And if George finds out the truth about Lewis's home -- will he still be his friend?

Acclaimed adult author Eric Gansworth makes his YA debut with this wry and powerful novel about friendship, memory, and the joy of rock 'n' roll.

About the author

Eric Gansworth enjoys music ranging from the Beatles to the Decemberists, Pink Floyd to Green Day. He has published nine highly praised books of fiction and poetry for adults, and his artwork has been shown in multiple exhibitions. An enrolled member of the Onondaga Nation, Eric grew up on the Tuscarora Indian Reservation in upstate New York. Currently, he is a professor of English and the Lowery Writer-in-Residence at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York.