The Nightingales

"In 1985, Emil Wilson's father invites his coworker, Jim, and his two Pomeranians, Henny and Penny, to move into his family's small town Oregon home. What Donald doesn't tell his wife, Annemarie, or his seventeen-year-old daughter, Lou, is that Jim has AIDS. Months before Rock Hudson's diagnosis became public and ushered in a new era of public sympathy for the crisis, AIDS is still a news story that happens in faraway places to faraway people, and Jim's presence in the house turns this small-town Oregon family upside down. As Annemarie's fear and resentment grows, resulting in increasingly bitter fights with the gentle and stubborn Donald, so too does Lou's unlikely and genuine friendship with Jim (and his dogs)-a friendship that not only buoys Jim's final days, but is a catalyst for Lou to finally pursue her truest and bravest self in the bigger world. Based on a true story, The Nightingales is a gorgeous and singular coming-of-age novel, a human portrait of an imperfect family grappling with extraordinary circumstances, and a moving example of how small acts of kindness can change us forever"--