15 Going On 30: This Thing Called Love

by Peter Rizzolo

In the 1950s, they didn’t talk much about domestic violence, infidelity, or alcoholism. Fifteen-year-old Mathew Sweeney has no guidelines to help him navigate as he enters an internal journey of conflicting emotions. He is in love with Maria, with whom he works at a summer job at the community swimming pool. She is a junior and more interested in Jason, a senior who tools about campus in a baby-blue 1957 Chevrolet. His father, Danny, a sportswriter with a byline in the town newspaper, had been his early childhood hero. The newspaper editor fires Danny when his drinking causes his workplace performance to suffer. The Sweeneys sell their home and move into an apartment. Clara, now supports the family by working as a hostess at a local hotel. His parents are now in open warfare over his father’s infidelity. Matthew and his mother leave Danny and move in with her mother. Matthew believes things could not possibly get worse, but he is mistaken. The unthinkable happens.

264 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 10, 2019