Turgenev wrote, ‘Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: “Great God, grant that twice two be not four.”’ Pete Dexter starts from the other end. His characters know that, whatever they pray for, twice two will always be four — and it will always be held against them, and they will have to pay for it.
It is 1953. Train is a black teenager who caddies at a white golf club, an inspired innocent who carries grass seed back to the ghetto to grow a lawn, who feeds a literally lame duck he names Marliss. Miller Packard is a police sergeant who discovers in Train the most naturally gifted golfer he has ever seen. He moves Train and his friend Plural — a blind, punch-drunk ex-boxer — into the guest-house on his wife’s Beverly Hills property.
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