Author Description

Jack Barton's former life vanished after graduation from a small Midwestern high school in 1959. With his house demolished for a freeway, his parents migrating to Florida, and his life-long friends all moving away, Jack would never be able to go home. Now, on his own in a large university town hoping to become a flyboy, Jack struggled to forge a new life and new companionship. Rooming with a Japanese-American student whose customs proved completely foreign required adjustments, but friendships with a small group of ethnic Japanese soon developed. Yet, that affiliation thrust Jack into opposition with those who still blamed World War II on all "Japs." As the conflicts escalated and intensified, Jack had to decide if he would go "all-in" to support his new friends at the risk of his own future, or simply walk away and abandon the fight for justice.