A defining chapter of national history unfolds through intimate lives in America by Mike Bond. Cultural transformation and personal discovery move together as young people respond to a rapidly changing world.

As unrest and possibility reshape the country, four young lives begin to diverge and intertwine. Troy, orphaned early, finds belonging and dreams fueled by flight and space. Tara channels creativity into music, moving toward a life defined by performance and independence. Mick, a football standout, grows increasingly unsettled by authority and the war overseas. Daisy, driven by equality and service, joins the Peace Corps and studies the human mind. Their journeys reveal both the exhilaration and cost of a generation shaped by protest, cultural revolution, and enduring questions about freedom, identity, and what is ultimately gained or lost.

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Excerpt

THE BOY STARED through the cyclone fence at the dirt road, golden meadow and forested hills beyond. He listened a moment more to the din of other boys playing in the concrete yard behind him, scrambled up the cyclone fence ripping his shirt on the barbed wire top and dashed across the meadow uphill into the cool shadowed forest.

Minutes later he glanced down from the hilltop at the hostile brick walls and barred windows of the orphanage. A black Ford police car with white doors had stopped at the gate, its yellow roof globe flashing. Two priests and a cop were walking along the road, one priest gesturing at the forest.

He imagined them catching him, hitting him, wished he’d never run away, turned uphill through the dark trees then down a wooded valley to a stream. He knelt in the wet moss, his reflection rising toward him – dirty and skinny, tan hair askew – and drank the icy water tasting of rock and mud. So this is what it’s like to drink from a stream.

He followed the valley for a long time till he saw a dirt road ahead through the trees. A big red car was there. Afraid he’d been seen, he pulled back into the trees. From the car’s open windows came voices, a man and woman. If he moved back up the hill they’d surely see him. He’d be taken back to the Boys’ Home, the Fathers would whup him.

A warm breeze stirred the leaves. His heart hammered, his knees shook with fear and fatigue. Soon the car would leave and he could cross the road.

The woman was moaning. Holding his breath he listened. The man must be hurting her. She cried out; the boy glanced round but there was no one who could help.

Shivering with fear, he worried what to do. If the man killed her and he had done nothing to help, it was a terrible sin. But if he tried to help her he’d get sent back to the Boys’ Home. Standing, he tried to see better. The man was pushing the woman down in the back seat, maybe strangling her.

The boy dashed across the road and banged on the car. “You leave her alone Mister!” he yelled, voice shaking, “I’ll call the cops!”

They were naked from the waist down. “Get him out of here!” the woman screamed. The man threw open the back door shouting, “You little shit!” and slapped the boy hard across the head. The boy tumbled into the ditch and scrambled through brambles uphill. The man wasn’t following but the boy kept running, gasping for wind, legs weak with fear that the man would circle somehow and get him. He ran till he could run no more, stumbled, fell, and ran again.

After a while he stopped and bent over panting, watching behind him. He couldn’t stop shivering but wasn’t cold. He tried to talk to himself and his voice trembled. His head spun, his ears whined. If the man wasn’t killing her what was he doing? Why had she said get him out of here? Why were they naked like that?

Confused and terribly lonely, the boy moved on through the forest, jumping in terror at the crash of an animal running away, a flash of tawny fur. Even the Boys’ Home was better than this.

In late afternoon he came to a big place of empty, run-down tarpaper-covered buildings, some of their windows broken, tall grass spiking up from their concrete yards. He felt hungry and afraid, then angry at himself for feeling it. He snuck along one building and looked in a window hoping for something to eat, but there were only empty concrete floors, yellowed newspapers, rusty cans, torn tarpaper, and a broken toilet lying on its side. He slipped through a half-open door and stepped silently from room to room around broken bottles, boards with nails sticking up and chunks of fallen ceiling.

A window shattered overhead and he ducked into a closet, broken glass in his hair, deafened by his pounding heart, hoping whoever it was hadn’t seen him.

Maybe it was a bird hit that window. Stupid bird.

He tiptoed from the closet toward the door. Another window crashed. He ran stumbling over cans and bottles. Someone was shooting at him. At the door he halted, fearing what to do. Blood ran down his cheek onto his shirt. They were going to kill him.

Steps scuffed outside in the concrete courtyard. A kid. The kid picked up a rock and slung it. Glass shattered and the rock hopped across the floor inside.

About the Author

Mike Bond is the author of nearly a dozen bestselling novels and an ecologist, war and human rights journalist, award-winning poet, and international energy expert. His work spans more than thirty countries across seven continents, often drawn from firsthand experiences in remote, dangerous, and war-torn regions. His novels are praised worldwide for their intricate plots, vivid settings, and explosive pacing. His reporting has covered wars, revolutions, terrorism, and major environmental crises.

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