Cold Air Return

�Eugene, at twelve, discovers that he can listen in on the grownups. A cold air return register in his bedroom, tied to ducts within the walls of his house, is a portal to the adult world around him. But that world puts severe demands on his innocence, suddenly forcing him to face concerns more mature than he is, and, ultimately, to confront the person within him. Cold Air Return is to be enjoyed on many levels. It is about tradition, prejudice, discovery, sex, and cultural values. The story explores who we are, probing the essence of family, camaraderie, community, love, and even baseball.� �Nancy Dunham, former non-fiction editor of The Heartland Today

Patrick Lawrence O�Keeffe was born in Towanda, Pennsylvania, where he attended Saint Agnes School through the eighth grade. Raised on a dairy farm three miles west of Ulster, he was one of nine children in a family that also included three orphaned cousins. When he was a teenager, his parents sold their farm and relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area. O�Keeffe studied for the priesthood under the Holy Cross Fathers

at the University of Notre Dame, where he received frequent encouragement from his teachers to become a writer.

Later embarking on a career in industrial fabrication, he lived in Indiana and Michigan, and finally settled near Akron, Ohio, where he and his wife, Karen, raised five children. They now reside close to Lake Erie, in Port Clinton. O�Keeffe participates in activities of the Firelands Writing Center, and reads his work at the Center�s monthly readings at Mr. Smith�s Coffee House in Sandusky, Ohio. Along with poetry that has appeared in various journals, he has also contributed humorous essays to the South Bend Tribune, as well as book reviews for the Morrow County Sentinel.

In 2016, he authored and co-edited History of Ottawa County, The 1st 175 Years, a comprehensive work that tells the story, in photos and narrative, about the settling of one of the final frontiers in Ohio, which largely arose from the Great Black Swamp and the Lake Erie Islands. He is also the editor and publisher of the Scribbler, a monthly historical and literary paper for Ottawa County readers. Cold Air Return is O�Keeffe�s

first novel. He is currently at work on a second.