Excerpt from Did You Ever Have A Family by Bill Clegg, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Luke wasn't perfect, but for him to get caught with a major cocaine haul made no sense. It still doesn't. I'd heard that his mother, Lydia, somehow had something to do with it, one of her shady boyfriends. And later I was told by a guy who works in the Beacon Police Department that Luke had been screwed into pleading guilty by a lawyer and a crooked judge who were protecting bigger fish. Whatever went down, Luke never said anything about it to me or anyone else I know. After he got out, he came back to Wells, got jobs here and there, and eventually started his landscaping business. One thing about Luke is that he never talked shit about other people. He could be moody and sometimes lose his temper, but he didn't talk trash. That his mother had been gossiped about so much over the years must have had something to do with it. Who knows. Even when he'd start seeing some girl, it was always from somebody else that I'd find out. Growing up, the rest of us practically took out ads in the paper when we got to first, second, and third base. And home run, Jesus, everyone had to know and usually within a few hours. But not Luke. He played it cool. Like when he started up with June Reid. Sandy's the one who told me—she keeps tabs on everyone—and by the time I found out, he was already living in that old stone house on Indian Pond Road. I must have seen him once or twice a week back then and he never mentioned it.

When Luke first got out of prison, his swimming coach from high school, Mr. Delinsky, got him a job life-guarding at the town beach. I was down there all the time with Sandy and Liam, who was just an infant. It was before we started Feast of Reason and I was still working evenings, mostly on the weekends, for a catering company in Cornwall. My days were free and we were living with my mother, so we would park Liam on a towel at the lake and kick back. Luke was there, and Jesus if he didn't get big in prison. He's always kept his shit tight, but with swimming the guys never get too bulky. He must have lifted weights every day, because it looked like he'd put on at least twenty pounds of muscle. He was ripped. He'd be up on that white chair looking out over the kids splashing around in the algae-covered lake, black as a berry and built like an Olympian. It's a weird thing to say, but he was like a movie star or a famous athlete. Too big, too handsome, too something for the likes of us. No one around here looked like he did, and I don't just mean because he was black. I caught Sandy looking at him more than a few times, and I thought what the heck, who can blame her?

He worked as a lifeguard for most of that summer. By August, a few of the mothers who took their kids to the lake complained about the town hiring someone fresh out of jail and he had to give up the job. After that he started helping out with Steve Pitcher's estate management company. Raking leaves, cleaning gutters, clearing brush. He did that for a couple summers, and in the evenings and in the winter I got him a few cater-waiter jobs for big events at Harkness. The company I worked for had a contract with the boarding school for their fancier alumni events and we always needed help. I'd watch Luke move through the room fetching coffee and pouring wine for these white-haired, old bankers and lawyers in blue blazers and think there was something very wrong. At that point he would have been a sophomore at Stanford, winning races, planning a future filled with nights like this, but with him being waited on and not the other way around. It's not that I think one life is better than the other—hell, I'll be serving white-haired New Yorkers in blue blazers the rest of my life—but it's just that this wasn't the life he was supposed to live. Anyone who knew Luke in high school could tell he was not long for our town. Of all the lazy potheads and drunks we grew up with, who one way or another have managed to live off disability checks, insurance settlements, or both, who would ever have guessed that it would be Luke Morey who would be buried here at thirty years old? No one, that's who. Not even Dirk Morey or his old man, Earl, who used to be married to Luke's mom. Those crazy, redheaded Moreys never liked Luke—and fair enough, they had their reasons—but the truth is that Luke never did anything to them besides being born and having the same name. It didn't matter. He was always in their crosshairs, and in a town as small as Wells you're bound to cross paths with everyone, even the people you want to avoid. And despite the fact that Dirk was a little guy and a few years younger than us, he was always just over our shoulders cracking jokes, giving Luke a rough time. Luke could take care of himself, but there were a few times some of us had to step in. Dirk's the only person I've ever punched, and the night I did, he had it coming. It'd be one thing if we were still kids, but this was only a few years ago. We were leaving the elementary- school cafeteria, where the volunteer fire department has its monthly spaghetti dinners. Everyone goes. They always have. June and Luke had already walked out, and Dirk was behind me and Sandy. Looks like he found a broad just like his mother, he said, poking his finger into my back and looking up ahead at Luke and June. I ignored Dirk as most of us do when he's had a few too many beers. Usually he'll shut the fuck up and move on, but not that night. Some of 'em just like dark meat, I guess. Funny thing, eh, Rick? He poked my back again and I could feel my fists clench. Luke and June were only a few yards ahead of us, but I don't think they could hear. And then, making sure everyone in the cafeteria could hear: Difference is this rich cunt pays for it. With that, I spun around and decked him. Half the town at one time or another has wanted to deck Dirk Morey, and some of them have. He's been hauled out of the Tap almost as many times as his father. The Moreys are loud drunks, but they're little guys, wiry, and as aggressive as they can get, they usually avoid a brawl. Problem is that there are so many of them around here. Dirk always feels free to mouth off because there are usually two or three cousins nearby to defend him if he gets in a scrape. His family is the volunteer fire department, so he must have felt bigger than usual that night. It was lucky that Luke got to me before any Moreys did, because after I hit Dirk the first time, I shoved him to the floor and dove in. I'd heard this guy heckle and mouth off since we were kids, and I'd saved up a few swipes over the years. I got a couple good ones in, too, before Luke dragged me off to the parking lot. June Reid stood to the side while Luke made sure I wasn't going back in for more, but when Sandy and I started walking to our car, June ran up and grabbed my hand. Not a thank-you, no words. She pulled one of my hands into hers, squeezed it, and let go. She was looking down the whole time, so I couldn't see if there were tears on her face, but she was upset. She rushed back to Luke before I could say anything.

Excerpted from Did You Ever Have A Family by Brian Clegg. Copyright © 2015 by Brian Clegg. Excerpted by permission of Gallery Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.