Sweet & Crazy — Patty Dann

Poignant and bittersweet, Sweet & Crazy is the story of a single mother coping with the extremes of life.

At thirty-nine, Hanna Painter has returned to her hometown of Ash Creek, Ohio. Since Hanna's husband, Ed, has died of cancer, Hanna has been raising their precocious four-year old son, Pete, on her own. Mother and son are dealing with their loss in different ways.
Hanna is teaching older women to write their life stories at the local YMCA. Pete starts kindergarten and has quickly found a best friend in Omar, the Indian son of Mazur, who runs the local cleaners.

Next door to Hanna and Pete lives Thomas Winton, a provacative middle-age man who works as a cooper at the eighteenth-century colonial restoration outside of town.

Hanna, Thomas, and Pete have just begun to form a fragile new family when the World Trade Center is attacked. Hanna struggles with the challenges of raising a son alone, romance, and racism as the once-peaceful town of Ash Creek faces the new century.