In his utterly charming story of a World War II veteran and an enterprising pinup girl, Steve Amick has created a beautifully understated love letter to an America of harder times and simpler choices.
It's 1944, and Wink Dutton, a former illustrator for Yank and Stars and Stripes, arrives in Chicago after an injury to his drawing hand gets him discharged. Renting a room above the camera shop run by Sal Chesterton—the wife of Wink's buddy, still stationed in the Philippines—Wink is surprised to learn how Sal is making ends meet: producing pinup photos for the soldiers' girlie magazines. In fact, she's using herself as a model. When Wink becomes a partner in her covert enterprise, it's the beginning of a collaboration that is both wonderfully sexy and pure, one that not only leads to Wink’s reinvention as a photographer but also—amid the painful adjustments of the postwar world—blossoms into a subtle and unexpected romance.
“Playful… Sweet…. A novel with all the happy gloss of a romantic comedy.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Amick’s expertly crafted novel combines an unusual love story with an intriguing, atmospheric peek into the American graphic-art world in the 1940s.” —People
“Pitch-perfect. . . . Amick gives us something increasingly rare—a love story with heart.” —Associated Press
“A quirky, touching, and at times refreshingly masculine valentine. As [Amick] immerses us richly and authentically in an era essential to the formation of our national identity, he offers . . . a reminder, when we need it most, of why America remains a country with a vast potential for greatness.” —Julia Glass, author of Three Junes
