August Greenleaf’s Last 7,000 Days: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and the Miraculous
8:30 a.m., Tuesday, January 25, 2033:
“The following pages tell a true story; I know because it’s my story. As I sit comfortably at my desk, here in my den, I share with you, my reader, the knowledge that I will die this afternoon. I am as sure of this elemental fact as the eagle is that he can fly or the fish that he can swim. Flanders Cremation Service has already been notified, and by Saturday at this time—if my wishes are carried out properly—I will be ashes. From then on, in this world, August Nathaniel Greenleaf will be just a memory. I can only hope that those whom I’ve loved will remember me with fondness, and perhaps a little forgiveness. Lord knows I have not always been easy to live with.”
So begins the chronicle of August Greenleaf—a bright, restless boy burdened by the quiet conviction that something extraordinary is destined to happen to him, long before he understands what “extraordinary” even means. Like all of us, August’s story begins with his birth—though unlike most, he remembers his in vivid, almost cinematic detail. From an early age, he also fixates on a grand white Victorian house nestled in the overgrowth near Jamaica Bay’s southern edge in Queens, New York. It stands plainly in view from his family’s seventh-floor apartment window—yet no one else can see it. This eerie contradiction haunts him, feeding his anxieties and deepening his fear that his so-called gifts may actually be signs of something far stranger.
August Greenleaf’s Last 7,000 Days is a poignant and imaginative coming-of-age tale that traces the emotional journey of a boy growing into a young man in a world that doesn’t quite make space for him. With moments of wit, heartbreak, and wonder, the novel explores how August navigates love, grief, and a profound connection to the unseen—ultimately discovering that his memories, and the mysterious house across the bay, may hold the key to who he truly is.
