Synopsis:
The summer Michael Smolij turns seventeen, his father disappears. One by one other men also vanish from the blue-collar neighborhood outside Detroit where their fathers before them had lived, raised families, and, in a more promising era, worked. One man props open the door to his shoe store and leaves a note. “I'm going to the moon,” it reads. “I took the cash.”

The wives drink, brawl, and sleep around, gradually settling down to make new lives and shaking off the belief in an American dream that, like their husbands, has proven to be a thing of the past. Unable to leave the neighborhood their fathers abandoned, Michael and his friends stumble through their twenties until the restlessness of the fathers blooms in them, threatening to carry them away.

This is a haunting, unforgettable debut novel for anyone who has ever been left longing.   http://www.deanbakopoulos.com/book/synopsis.html

GAVIOTAS is about an experimental community that is thriving in the rain forest of Columbia. The founder of this community, Paolo Lugari, “recruited engineers from universities in Bogota to develop technology for the rural tropics. Their marvels are found all over the village. The Global Citizen writes "The technical and architectural triumph of Gaviotas is its hospital, cooled by the wind, heated by the sun. The sun also provides hot water, boiled sterilized water, and the heat for six pressure cookers in the kitchen, plus enough electricity for the lights.”   http://www.dharma-haven.org/five-havens/gaviotas.htm