And Those We Choose

North Tonawanda, New York, 1978. Factory whistles still mark the end of the shift. Ashtrays overflow on kitchen tables and bar tops. The Bee Gees drift from radios and jukeboxes. People work hard, drink hard, and mostly keep their troubles to themselves.
Martin Sweeney sells appliances for a living, but he is convinced he was meant for more. Enamored with his own potential, he keeps waiting for the move that will finally prove it.

Then Bill Hatcher comes along.

Hatcher is a two-bit grifter with the soul of a cockroach and a gift for finding the soft spot in a man's ego. In Martin, he finds exactly what he is looking for: someone hungry enough to believe that one big move can change everything.

When Hatcher floats a dilapidated roadside motel as Martin's chance to finally "join the club," Martin buys in without telling his wife, Evelyn. What begins as ambition becomes a secret, and the secret starts pulling at the seams of the life Martin thought he was trying to improve.

Gritty, plainspoken, wry, and compassionate, And Those We Choose is a novel about complicated relationships, bad decisions, money, marriage, friendship, longing, self-deception, and the people we choose to love, leave, trust, and follow.

At its heart, it is a story about ordinary people trying to build better lives-and the cost of believing too deeply in the stories they tell themselves.