Original sins

Lisa Alther

Five friends-- Sally, Emily, Jed, Raymond, and Donny-- spend their Tennessee childhoods trading dreams in the branches of the Castle Tree. As children of the 1950s, they are filled with wild ambitions and determined to live gaudy, glamorous lives. The ties that bind them begin to dissolve when they become teenagers, yet the story continues-- and each of these old friends travels in a direction that he or she could have never anticipated.