Human Comedy Saroyan William (2007)

Set in Ithaca in Californias San Joaquin Valley during World War II, this gentle, poignant and richly autobiographical novel follows the Macauley familya mother, daughter and three sonswhose struggles and dreams reflect those of Americas second-generation immigrants. Fourteen-year-old Homer, determined to become one of the fastest telegraph messengers in the West, finds himself caught between reality and illusion as messages of wartime death, love and money bring him face-to-face with human emotion at its most raw. The novel shows a boy becoming a man in a world that, even amid war, seems sweeter, safer and more livable than our own. It is also the basis of the motion picture Ithaca, directed by and starring Meg Ryan, with Sam Shepard, Hamish Linklater, Alex Neustaedter, Jack Quaid and Tom Hanks.