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Mark Schweickart
Woo Hoo! Toot! Toot! Did someone say it’s time for more of Mark’s horn-tooting? Why yes, now that you mention it... it is! Toot! Toot!
I am happy to announce that I finally got around to putting up on Amazon a book I have been kicking around for the last few years. Here's the link:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B6XS8BPN?psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp
Before proceeding any further, let me give a shout out to a few classmates who helped me by being early readers of this – a huge Thank You to Larry Foster, Tim Lavelle, and Jack Maxwell for their feedback. And, of course, now I would like to further impose on them by asking them to write a review on the Amazon site. C’mon guys, once more into the breach! (A plea that also goes out to anyone here on the Forum who might happen to read this someday.)
“So what the hell is this book about?” you ask. As many of you know, I am drawn to historical topics that I like to put into a more fictionalized form. You may remember me blathering on about my one-woman play about the life of Jessie Benton Frémont, or my screenplay series about Frédérick Auguste Bartholdi’s creation of The Statue of Liberty. In this latest endeavor, I have tried my hand at writing a novel.
Here’s the book’s front cover, and to answer your question, a synopsis from the back cover.
This historical novel introduces us to Verna, a young white woman, who is shaped by two oft-forgotten civil rights episodes – the 1943 Detroit race riot, and the 1961 Freedom Rides.
Arriving in Detroit in 1942, 19-year-old Verna has come looking for both work in the booming defense plants, as well as the start of her adult life, with whatever romance that might include. However, Detroit is not only booming, and in need of workers, it is also bubbling with racial turmoil that culminates in a little remembered, but quite horrific race riot – an event which sears into Verna the complexity and importance of race relations in this country.
Moving forward to 1958, Verna is now a 34-year-old single mother living in Ohio, who befriends Jerry, an 11-year-old white boy, who has just jeopardized his relationship with a black friend. (Okay, okay, so this Jerry character is a bit autobiographical, and readers of my earlier memoir might recognize his transgression repeated here. Sorry for the interruption – back to the synopsis.) When he calls on Verna to discuss his dilemma, their conversation takes us further into Verna’s world and the troubled racial awareness she carries with her from her time in Detroit.
Next we move to 1961, when the now 37-year-old Verna, tired of the mostly meaningless life she has been leading since her Detroit days, meets Harold, a similarly aged, black college professor. They join a newly formed group known as Freedom Riders who journey by bus into the South to test the compliance of desegregation laws concerning interstate travel – a journey which becomes exceptionally harrowing.
Of course, this is not just a recounting of two historical events. This is foremost Verna’s story – with her love opportunities, her struggle with single motherhood, and her perseverance through the chaos of Detroit in ’43 and the Freedom Rides of ’61 – both dramatically charged, if often-overlooked, civil rights episodes teeming with complexity, tragedy, and, as Verna’s soldier-boy Lenny might urge, perhaps a glimmer of hope.
Toot! Toot!
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