Bethany Park

Bethany Park tells the story of how thirteen-year old Eddie Stone copes with a neighborhood inventor, the local Episcopalian priest, seventh grade schoolyard bullies, and his girl bodyguard as he aspires to be an athlete. Inspired by a Sports Illustrated article about sprinter Dr. Delano Meriwether, Eddie wants to be on his junior high track team. Eddie Stone is a scientifically precocious and socially unconfident kid whose musings about rocks and frogs are analogues to the human condition. Bethany Park is a nostalgic tale in which a sardonic and at times self-deprecating Eddie desires to be an athlete because he wants to adhere to the Boy Scout Oath of keeping himself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight—and also because he knows that girls aren’t interested in boys “who play with their microscopes all day.”