Mifflin Drift

Fifteen-year-old Larry never wanted to leave the calm of his grandparent’s farm, but now he’s in Northglen, Ohio living in a snug home with his mom and boozy stepfather, E.A. Darnell. The high school is run with an iron fist by groups called the Rat Pack and the Gents. The neighborhood is packed with weirdos. On top of that, E.A. has a habit of losing jobs, including the one that brought them here. When he comes home drunk one night and tells Larry to get out, he’s half tempted to do it. But Larry is soon adopted by a gang of local toughs that roam the woods beyond the stream that locals call Sewer Creek, throwing cherry bombs at skinny dippers and sneaking into the drive-in theater. Complicating Larry’s love life is Kathy, a member of the Rat Pack who’d love to date a baseball player if her Hollywood mother would sign on. Then there’s Lynn, the gutsy charmer he can’t forget, but who refuses to even tell Larry where she lives. Mifflin Drift is about eight friends in pre-Vietnam America and how they grew up―despite their best efforts not to.

Larry Eley lives on a small farm in central Ohio along with his wife Vikki, five cats, one dog and a flock of Jacob sheep. Together, they have six children with families of their own, including fifteen grandchildren and one great-grandchild. With a career spanning 55 years in the construction industry, Larry currently works as a Class III building inspector for the city of Delaware, Ohio. He enjoys farming with his antique tractors, being a shepherd and vegetable gardening. Larry hopes to retire by the time he is 95 so that he can pursue his hobbies full time. M.T. Eley lives in Roanoke, Virginia with his fiancée Erin and cat. A graduate of Kenyon College, he has written in the Columbus Dispatch, Gilbert!, The Bold Italic, The Alcohol Professor and other publications, as well as serving on the board of the San Francisco-based Bay Area Travel Writers. When not writing, he is usually working in operations in Silicon Valley, reading or out on a walk.