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by Mark Di Frangia (Author)
Part One explores growing up amid the racial and homophobic backlash of suburban California in the 50's and 60's. As a child of two well-meaning parents, themselves from broken, dysfunctional families, the narrator strikes out at an early age to come to grips with his 'otherness'. These tales include insights into family and neighborhood characters and first, innocent looks at the 'hushed-up' topic of sexuality and role playing evident all around him. Travel is introduced as a mind-broadening experience, leading the narrator to find kinship in other societies.
Part Two reflects the emotional and sentimental journey of the narrator, a naïve, young American with a very low draft number and no interest in ending up on the killing fields of Vietnam before living a little. The compass points East, to the sultry and sensual Mediterranean, as a perfect draft-dodger's destination in the high and heavy war years of the early 1970s. A variety of jobs, characters and romantic interludes season the story of four years spent in Greece, during the military junta, and under suspicion of being an undercover CIA agent. The tales are enhanced with descriptions of travel, holidays and life-styles in and around Greece in a decade of very different sexual mores as the narrator grows into manhood in a foreign, macho society.
Part Three takes the narrator further eastwards, following his whim for adventure and a new job offer, to Bahrain, in the Persian Gulf. New characters and situations, sexual revelations and life-long friendships flesh out these chapters. Travels in 1970s Iran, India and South America add local color and spice to the story. Dominant characters from Parts One and Two re-enter the scene as the narrator moves to Manhattan in the dazzling 1980s in pursuit of employment and self-awareness in what should be his 'home culture'. A twist of Fate re-unites friends met years ago and tempts the narrator to abandon America once again for the high life of Europe.
This materializes in a new career starting in Geneva and followed by over two decades in Munich. A brief epilogue, written ten years later in time, concludes the story. It reunites the narrator with modern-day Greece, old friends and the country's enduring effect upon him.
