“A masterful storyteller.” -Sacramento Bee
“One of the 21st Century’s most exciting authors.”Washington Times
“Mike Bond’s books are a national treasure.” -Art Zuckerman, WVOX
Mike Bond, best-selling author, is most well-known for his thrillers. His novels are among his most beloved. “Pono Hawkins”His novels of military action and international espionage have won him much critical acclaim.
In 2018, he surprised us with a collection of poetry. “The Drum that Beats Within Us,”These covered a broad range of topics, including stunning studies of nature and the natural world to the intimate parts of the human heart and beyond into the most important existential questions of life.
Mike Bond is back at it, and he has refocused his talents on another genre: The Historical Novel. “America”(Big City Press) The first volume of a seven-volume series is planned. “capturing the transformations and heartbreaks of the last 70 years, and of our nation’s most profound upheavals since the Civil War — a time that defined the end of the 20th Century and where we are today.”It is a hugely ambitious project.
FOUR FRIENDS ENTREPRENEURS IN THE TURBULENCE OF 1960S
Four children from different backgrounds are brought together in Nyack, NY during the 1960s.
Troy, an orphan who lives at the Boy’s Home in his hometown, meets Mick. He has a happy life on a farm, where he shares it with his sister Tara and his parents. Mick later adopts him. Tara, Mick’s little sister, and the girl Troy falls in love with, goes on to become a rock star singing mostly the blues, much like Janis Joplin.
Troy is eventually drafted into the service with the ambition to travel the outer world and explore flight. This goal was encouraged by an optimistic young president, who wants to send us to the Moon. Mick is a rebel and questions the Vietnam war. His girlfriend Daisy escapes with her abusive father, and is brutally abused every day by her mother. She manages escape and joins the Peace Corps to eventually study the human mind.
America is synonymous with classic coming-of age masterpieces like “Look Homeward, Angel”Thomas Wolfe. The characters are so vividly drawn that you feel you are reading about old friends.
These are young people who have seen their world change through the advent of drugs, sexual liberation, the pill, and rock music. As America transforms from a postwar nation to a country where women’s rights and civil rights are respected and respected, they serve as both a witness and a catalyst.
Now, we wonder if this generation made any difference in America’s transformation in the 1960s or if their struggles today continue, evolving but not solved. Black Lives Matter, Women’s March on Washington, and the environmental movement are just a few examples. We wonder if youth today will have to again fight for the same rights. It would be a good idea for them to read this book.
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