{"product_id":"zermatt-a-novel-9780786714605","title":"Zermatt: A Novel","description":"\u003cp\u003eCalvin Becker is back in a timeless story about the volcanic sexual curiosity of a fourteen-year-old boy born into a fundamentalist family so strict that he has never seen a movie  watched television  or danced (and has to hide his five copies of Mad magazine in the attic). It is 1966  and Ralph and Elsa Becker  Reformed Presbyterian missionaries from Kansas  are stationed in Switzerland  and on a modest ski vacation with their three children: tyrannical eighteen-year-old Janet  angelic Rachael  and our narrator  the irrepressible Calvin  who puzzles over his sisters bras  as they hang on a line hidden away \"so that I could not get a good look unless I ducked under the sheets ... to the feminine heart of the laundry maze.\" But at the Hotel Riffelberg  high above Zermatt  Calvin falls into the hands of a waitress who  while bringing him his breakfast each morning  serially initiates him into ecstasies he can barely comprehend. The resulting family crisis triggers a larger crisis of faith in his fundamentalist father  leading to a climax  which rips Calvin out of his childhood. With echoes of Irving and Roth and its own uniquely human voice  Zermatt is a coming-of-age gem.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45655931486261,"sku":"ByrdShop_0786714603","price":67.55,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780786714605.jpg?v=1781944793","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/zermatt-a-novel-9780786714605","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}