An Unfinished Season by Ward Just.

I am new to Ward Just -- somehow I had not heard of him until the last year or so -- and now I have lots to look forward to. An Unfinished Season is the story of the pivotal summer for a privileged young man before he enters college, set in Chicago in the 1950s. His life that summer involves a pleasing mix of worlds -- the deb balls of North Shore fine families, his visits to hear jazz greats in a club north of Chicago, his summer job at a disreputable newspaper, and the trial of a strike at his father's plant. The satisfying plot involves his first love and her unorthodox family, although the meat of the book is the dip into the various worlds of Chicago in that time. One wonderful note the author hits is the father -- at once a 50s sort of guy and a sensitive loving father. I shall not soon forget the story of him watching from his room his father skating on the pond, hitting hockey pucks into the goal in the dark evenings after work, taking a victory lap when he finished. Great images, so wonderfully imagined, you must ask where it came from.