Book excerpt: DIVDIVFinalist for the National Book Award: A witty novel of coming of age during wartime in America/divDIV In the words of its “author,” Samuel Heather, the Confession is a “comical historical pastoral” that chronicles the struggles of growing up the son of a Midwestern bishop. (“My father’s daily work was to be a father. It was excruciating.”) Samuel escapes Missouri to attend Harvard, where he gets himself expelled for exploding a footbridge over the Charles River. He is soon sent to fight in Korea and lands in a prison camp. Samuel’s picaresque coming of age—by turns both funny and poignant—is truly the tale of “a child of the century.”/div/div