The Codger and the Sparrow
Published by: TCU Press
224 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in
For Professors: Exam Copies
Hank O'Sullivan, a sixty-five-year-old widower, lives a routine life, nursing his loneliness with cocktails at his favorite local bar in Austin, Texas. After a parking lot brawl lands him in jail, a judge sentences Hank to community service, picking up trash along the highway alongside a sixteen-year-old troublemaker, Luis Delgado. Luis has remarkable artistic abilities, but his penchant for sneaking out late at night and trespassing onto rooftops lands him on the same road crew as Hank. These loners form an unlikely friendship, and when Hank tells Luis about his desire to drive to Houston to reconnect with an old flame, Luis asks to tag along. Luis's estranged mother lives in Houston, and he has been dreaming of a reunion. Hank agrees to take Luis with him, setting in motion a raucous trip in a hot pink 1970 Plymouth Barracuda. With humor and a bit of grace,The Codger and the Sparrow is a touching story about an unusual friendship that stretches across generations.
Author Scott Semegran lives in Austin, Texas with his wife. They have four kids, two cats, and a dog. His novels The Benevolent Lords of Sometimes Island won Writer's Digest Self-Published Book Awards for YA fiction and To Squeeze a Prairie Dog won the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award gold medal for Humor.
“Scott Semegran’s The Codger and the Sparrow is a wondrous novel of the road, where two unlikely people seek out the larger world, and in their uncertainty, help each other navigate the way toward something like home. Told with such an abundance of both humor and tenderness, this is a novel of discovery, of searching for answers, and I could not think of two people I’d rather ride alongside than Hank and Luis.”
– Kevin Wilson, New York Times bestselling author of Nothing to See Here and The Family Fang
“Semegran deftly blends humor with heart in a road trip romp that crosses generational divides. A coming-of-age for one, a coming-to-terms for the other, Semegran’s characters are deeply drawn in a way that envelopes readers from the start of their journey to its unexpected end. The Codger and the Sparrow is a fun, fresh meditation on friendship, loss, and new beginnings.”
– James Wade, Spur Award-winning author of All Things Left Wild and River, Sing Out
“Scott Semegran’s characters capture the essential human contradiction: that deep flaws and bad decisions exist right alongside our beautiful capacity for kindness and compassion. With equal parts heart and humor, The Codger and the Sparrow is an ode to the strange, messy, and transformative power of friendship.”
– Stacey Swann, author of Olympus, Texas
“The Codger and the Sparrow is a wide-open heart of a novel, filled with empathy and populated by flawed but loveable characters. A tender, funny ode to families—the ones we’ve lost, the ones we imagine, and the ones that come along when we least expect it.”
– C. Matthew Smith, author of Twentymile
“Author Scott Semegran delivers a moving and humorous story of two strangers who bond while doing community service for the Austin judicial system. Hank, a lonely old man haunted by the past, and Luis, a Puerto Rican teen broken by his parents’ separation, begin a journey of self-discovery and friendship in a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda as they travel the highways of Texas in search of forgiveness and family. The Codger and the Sparrow, like many of Semegran’s novels, shines in its loveable characters and authentic sense of place.”
– Johnnie Bernhard, award-winning author of Sisters of the Undertow and Hannah and Ariela
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