James Cutler, a high school physics teacher, is shattered by the suicide of his most promising student. Hoping to gain perspective and peace of mind, he travels with his wife, Phyllis, to Vermont to spend the summer at the farm of old friends, Josh and Lucy Blair. The Body of a Young Man is a deeply moving story of four people whose friendship asks more than they can give and offers more than they can take. Only in observing another tragedy does James begin to see vulnerability as a virtue and ambiguity as a source of strength. Mildred Walker, chronicler of the modern American West and New England, is gaining new admirers with Bison Books reprints of such novels as Winter Wheat and The Southwest Corner. Introducer Sharon Bryan, her longtime friend, is a visiting poet at the University of Houston and the author of Salt Air, Objects of Affection and the forthcoming Flying Blind.